\\4bis 

Number 

LIBRARY 


Trinity  College 

Durham,  N.  C. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2016 


https://archive.org/details/ethicsofhegel01  hege 


THE 


ETHICS  OF  HEGEL 


Translated  Selections  from  his 
“ Rechtsphilosophie  ” 


WITH  AN  INTRODUCTION 

BY 

J.  MACBRIDE  STERRETT,  D.D. 

PROFESSOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY  IN  THE  COLUMBIAN  UNIVERSITY,  WASHINGTON,  D C. 
AUTHOR  OF  “STUDIES  IN  HEGEL’S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION,”  ETC. 


iP 

O' 

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BOSTON,  U.S.A. 

GINN  & COMPANY,  PUBLISHERS 
1893 


Copyright,  1893, 

By  J.  MACBRIDE  STERRETT. 


ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED. 


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TO 

MY  WIFE 


EDITOR’S  PROSPECTUS. 


The  Ethical  Series,  of  which  this  book  on  Hegel’s  Ethics, 
by  Professor  Sterrett,  is  the  second  number,  will  consist  of  a 
number  of  small  volumes,  each  of  which  will  be  devoted  to 
the  presentation  of  a leading  system  in  the  History  of 
Modern  Ethics,  in  selections  or  extracts  from  the  original 
works.  These  selections  will  be  accompanied  by  explana- 
tory and  critical  notes.  They  will  also  be  introduced  by  a 
bibliography,  a brief  biographical  sketch  of  the  author  of 
the  system,  a statement  of  the  relation  of  the  system  to 
preceding  ethical  thought,  and  a brief  explanation  of  the 
main  features  of  the  system  and  its  influence  on  subsequent 
ethical  thought.  The  volumes  will  be  prepared  by  experi- 
enced teachers  in  the  department  of  Ethics  and  with  special 
reference  to  undergraduate  instruction  and  study  in  colleges. 

The  series  at  present  will  include  six  volumes  as  follows  : 
Hobbes,  Professor  G.  M.  Duncan,  Yale  University  ; 
Clarke,  President  F.  L.  Patton,  Princeton  University  ; 
Locke,  the  Editor  of  the  Series  ; 

Hume,  Dr.  J.  H.  Hyslop,  Columbia  College  ; 

Kant,  Professor  John  Watson,  Queen’s  University,  Canada. 
Hegel,  Professor  J.  Macbride  Sterrett, Columbian  University. 

The  increasing  interest  in  the  study  of  Ethics  and  the 
consequent  enlargement  of  the  courses  in  college  curricula, 
suggest  to  every  teacher  the  need  of  better  methods  of 
teaching  the  subject  than  those  which  have  quite  generally 


EDITOR'S  PROSPECTUS. 


prevailed  in  the  past.  Instruction  in  the  History  of  Ethics, 
like  instruction  in  the  History  of  Philosophy,  has  largely 
been  based  on  text-books  or  lectures  giving  expositions  of, 
and  information  about,  the  various  systems.  Such  methods, 
although  serviceable,  are  not  as  stimulating  and  helpful  as 
those  which  put  the  student  in  direct  contact  with  the 
text  of  the  author,  enabling  him  to  study  the  system 
itself  rather  than  to  study  about  the  system.  Undoubtedly 
the  best  plan  would  be  to  have  the  student  read  the  entire 
work  of  the  author,  but  all  teachers  will  probably  concede 
the  impracticability  of  this  in  undergraduate  work,  if  a num- 
ber of  systems  is  to  be  studied,  which  is  usually  desirable. 
Only  inferior,  in  my  judgment,  to  the  best,  but  impracticable 
plan,  is  the  plan  of  the  “Ethical  Series,”  — to  study  selec- 
tions or  extracts  from  the  original  works,  embodying  the 
substance  of  the  system.  The  “ Series  ” makes  provision 
for  such  work  in  a convenient  and  comparatively  inexpen- 
sive manner.  That  the  plan  of  instruction  on  which  the 
“ Series  ” is  based  is  in  the  interest  of  better  scholarship, 
I am  assured  by  my  own  experience,  and  by  that  of  many 
other  teachers  in  the  leading  colleges  of  the  country,  with 
whom  I have  communicated.  It  is  with  the  earnest  hope  of 
facilitating  instruction  and  study  in  the  History  of  Ethics 
that  this  series  is  issued. 

E.  HERSHEY  SNEATH. 


Yale  University. 


PREFACE. 


The  great  revival  of  interest  and  work  in  the  department 
of  Ethics  during  the  present  quarter  of  a century  has  had 
its  chief  inspiration  and  source  in  the  idealistic  philosophy 
of  Germany.  Of  this  philosophy  Hegel  was  the  culmination 
and  crown.  Hence  it  is  not  necessary  to-day  to  apologize 
for  “intruding  on  the  public  with  a work  on  Hegel,”  as 
Dr.  Stirling  did  in  1865.  Apart  from  the  empirical  evolu- 
tionary school,  nearly  all  the  prominent  writers  on  Ethics 
in  England  have  been  following  quite  the  spirit  and  sub- 
stance of  Hegel. 

These  “ Selections  ” have  been  made  from  his  Philosophie 
des  Rechts  embracing  one-half  of  its  contents,  supplemented 
with  some  extracts  from  his  Phänomenologie  des  Geistes , 
Philosophie  des  Geistes  and  his  Philosophy  of  History  (trans- 
lation). The  portions  of  the  Rechts  Philosophie  omitted 
have  chiefly  reference  to  the  special  organization  of  the  state 
and  are  of  less  obvious  ethical  import. 

The  task  of  translating  has  been  a perplexing  one.  And 
the  task  of  mastering  his  thought  in  translation  may  be 
expected  to  require  at  least  the  arduous  effort  of  thought 
that  it  requires  in  the  original,  even  of  German  scholars. 
The  difficulties  of  Hegel,  and  the  impossibility  of  making 
any  adequate  and  intelligible  translation  are  too  well  known 
to  need  more  than  passing  mention.  I have  avoided  making 
a free  rendering  or  paraphrase,  though  this  is  much  more 
easy  and  agreeable  for  both  translator  and  student.  I have 
learned  that  one  invariably  regrets  having  adopted  this 
easier  method,  because  it  invariably  deforms  and  dwarfs 


PREFACE. 


viii 

Hegel’s  meaning.  I have  attempted  an  exact  translation, 
making  it  as  literal  as  possible  with  fairly  idiomatic  English 
— too  literal  for  intelligibility,  unless  accompanied  with 
careful  study.  Hegel’s  language  is  severely  scientific  and 
technical,  largely  the  adaptation  of  ordinary  German  to 
extraordinary  significations,  to  which  Wörterbücher  afford 
no  clue.  Common  language  expresses  common  thought, 
but  is  necessarily  inadequate,  without  great  stretching,  to 
philosophic  thought  or  to  the  scientific  expression  of  it. 
Hegel’s  work  is  not  merely  historical  or  descriptive  of 
ethical  phenomena,  but  a purely  scientific  theory  of  the 
thought  or  concept  ( Begriff ) underlying  and  animating  all 
forms  of  morals  and  manners. 

I have  given  a vocabulary  of  his  chief  technical  terms 
which  it  will  be  well  for  the  student  to  master  at  the  outset. 
The  Introduction  has  been  made  sufficiently  popular  for  all 
persons  interested  in  ethical  thought  — too  popular  for  real 
students  of  Hegel. 

I am  indebted  for  valuable  assistance  in  the  way  of 
making  out  some  of  the  most  difficult  constructions  in  the 
German  text  of  Part  First  of  the  “ Selections  ” and  also 
for  aid  in  looking  over  the  proof-sheets  to  my  colleague, 
Professor  Hermann  Schönfeld,  Ph.D.  I am  also  indebted 
to  Mr.  P.  M.  Magnusson,  Ph.D.,  for  valuable  help  in  my 
work  of  translating  most  of  the  “ Selections  ” in  Part  Third. 

J.  MACBRIDE  STERRETT. 

Columbian  University, 

Washington,  D.C.,  July,  1893. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


Bibliography xi,  xii 

Introduction i 

1.  Biographical  Sketch i 

2.  Relation  of  Hegel’s  Ethics  to  previous  Ethical 

Thought  8 

3.  Exposition  of  Hegel’s  Ethics  . . . . . 22 

4^  Key-Words . 57 

5.  Abstract  of  Hegel’s  Introduction  ....  63 

TRANSLATED  SELECTIONS. 

FIRST  PART. 


ABSTRACT  RIGHT. 

Abstract  Will  and  Personality  . 

1.  Property 

(a)  Possession  .... 

(b)  Use  or  Consumption 

(c)  Relinquishment  of  Property 

2.  Contract 

Wrong 

\ ( a ) Unintentional  Wrong  . 

\ ( b ) Fraud  .... 

V ( c ) Violence  and  Crime 

(Punishment 


7i 

76 

82 

84 

87 

89 

91 

92 
94 
94 
98 


SECOND  PART. 

MORALITY. 


iThe  Moral  Standpoint  . 

1.  Purpose  and  Culpability 

2.  Intention  and  Welfare 

3.  The  Good  and  Conscience 


I03 
108 
1 10 
1 16 


X 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


THIRD  PART. 

ETHICALITY  ( SITTLICHKEIT ). 

Concrete  Character  of  Ethicality 

1.  The  Family 

(a)  Wedlock 

(£)  Family  Possessions 

(c)  Education  of  Children  and  the  Dissolution 
of  the  Family 

2.  The  Civic  Community 

(a)  The  System  of  Wants 

Satisfaction  of  Wants  . 

The  Nature  of  Labor  

W EALTH 

Classes  of  the  Civic  Community 

Ce  Administration  of  Justice 
Law  as  a form  of  Right  . 

Essential  Characteristic  of  Law 

Courts  of  Justice 

Trial  by  Jury  

lice  and  Municipal  Corporation 

3.  The  State 

The  State  Distinguished  from  the  Civic 

Community 

(a)  Internal  Polity 

Patriotism 

The  State  and  Religion  . 

(b)  Monarchy  and  International  Policy  . 

(c)  Universal  History 

The  Course  of  Freedom  . 


PAGE 

r3S 

148 

149 

1 54 

H5 

159 

163 

163 

166 

168 

169 

174 

D5 

178 

181 

185 

187 

I89 

190 

l93 

200 

203 

206 

207 

212 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 


Works  of  Hegel  relating  to  Ethics. 

1.  Grundlinien  der  Philosophie  des  Rechts.  1S33.  Herausg. 
von  E.  Gans,  Hegel’s  Werke , Band  VIII. 

2.  Phänonie7iologie  des  Geistes.  Band  II. 

3.  Philosophie  des  Geistes.  Band  VII. 

4.  The  same.  Translated  into  French  by  A.  Vdra  : — Philo- 
sophie de  V Esprit  de  Hegel.  Par  A.  .Vera. 

5.  Philosophie  der  Geschichte.  Band  IX. 

6.  The  same.  Translatedby  J.  Sibree.  (Bohn’s  Library.) 

7.  Rechts -,  Pflichten-  und  Religions-Lehre.  Band  XVIII. 

8.  The  same.  Translated  into  English  with  notes  by  Dr. 
William  T.  Harris.  Jour.  Spec.  Phil.,  Vol.  IV. 

9.  The  same.  Translated  with  Supplementary  Essays  by  B.  C. 
Burt,  1892. 

10.  Hegel's  Philosophy  of  the  State  and  of  History.  An 
Exposition,  by  Professor  George  S.  Morris,  in  Griggs’s  Philo- 
sophical Classics,  1887. 

'‘Ethical  and  other  Treatises  in  the  Spirit  of  Hegel. 

1.  Die  me7ischliche  Freiheit.  Von  Wilhelm  Vatke,  1841. 

2.  Systetn  der  philosophische7i  Moral.  Von  Dr.  Karl  L. 
pichelet,  1828. 

3.  Die  sittliche  Weltord7i7i7ig.  Von  Moritz  Carriere. 

4.  Syste7>i  der  Rechtsphilosophie.  Von  Adolph  Lasson,  1S82. 

The  Natioii.  By  Elisha  Mulford,  1875. 

The  Republic  of  God.  By  the  same,  1882. 

The  Philosophy  of  Education.  Translated  from  the  German 
of  J.  K.  F.  Rosenkranz. 

Prolego7)ie7ia  to  Ethics.  By  Thomas  Hill  Green,  1884. 


Xll 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 


Outlines  of  a Critical  Theory  of  Ethics.  By  Professor  John 
Dewey,  1890. 

Ethical  Studies.  By  F.  H.  Bradley,  1876. 

Constructive  Ethics.  By  W.  L.  Courtney,  1886. 

Ethics  of  Naturalism.  By  W.  R.  Sorley,  1885. 

Introduction  to  Social  Philosophy.  By  J.  S.  Mackenzie,  1889. 
A Manual  of  Ethics.  By  the  same,  1893. 

Moral  Order  and  Progress.  By  S.  Alexander,  1891. 

The  Elements  of  Ethics.  By  J.  H.  Muirhead,  1892. 

Darwin  and  Hegel.  A pamphlet.  By  D.  G.  Ritchie. 
Darwinism  and  Politics.  By  the  same. 

Essays  in  Philosophical  Criticism.  Edited  by  Andrew  Seth 
and  R.  H.  Haldane,  1883. 

The  Secret  of  Hegel.  By  Dr.  J.  Hutchison  Stirling,  1865. 
Lectures  on  the  Philosophy  of  Law.  By  J.  Hutchison  Stirling, 
in  Vols.  VI.  and  VII.  of  Jour,  of  Spec.  Phil. 


BIOGRAPHICAL. 

Leben  Hegel's.  Von  Karl  Rosenkranz.  Hegel’s  Werke  (sup- 
plement), Band  XIX. 

Apologie  Hegel's  gegen  Dr.  Haym.  Von  K.  Rosenkranz,  1858. 
Hegel  als  de7itscher  Nationalphilosoph.  By  the  same,  1871. 
Hegel  Mid  seine  Zeit.  Von  R.  Haym,  1857. 

Hegel.  By  Professor  Edward  Caird,  1883. 

The  Spirit  of  Modern  Philosophy.  By  Professor  Josiah 
Royce,  1892. 


INTRODUCTION. 


i. 

Biographical  Sketch. 

The  Philosophy  of  Hegel  is  much  less  personal  than 
most  systems,  especially  in  contrast  with  that  of  Fichte. 
His  head  rather  than  his  heart  is  what  appears  through- 
out both  his  life  and  his  writings.  While  this  gives  his 
biography  less  interest,  it  gives  his  writings  much  more 
scientific  form. 

In  speaking  of  Philosophy,  as  showing  us  “ a succession 
of  noble  minds,  a gallery  of  heroes  of  thought,”  Hegel  him- 
self has  remarked  : 

“The  events  and  actions  of  this  history  are,  therefore, 
such  that  personality  and  individuality  of  character  do  not 
enter  to  any  large  degree  into  its  content  and  matter. 
In  this  respect,  the  history  of  Philosophy  contrasts  with 
political  history,  in  which  the  individual,  according  to  the 
peculiarity  of  his  disposition,  talents,  affections,  the  strength 
or  weakness  of  his  character,  and  in  general,  according  to 
that  through  which  he  is  this  individual,  is  the  subject  of 
actions  and  events.  In  Philosophy,  the  less  deserts  and 
merits  are  accorded  to  the  particular  individual,  the  better 
is  the  history.”  1 

It  is,  therefore,  more  pertinent  for  us  to  ask,  What  is 
Hegel l instead  of  asking,  Who  was  Hegel?  In  fact,  this 
is  the  way  we  ordinarily  think  of  Hegel,  as  the  living  sys- 
tem of  thought  which  he  wrought  out.  The  true  history  of 
a philosopher  is  the  history  of  his  thought  and  its  genesis. 

1 Hegel’s  History  of  Philosophy,  translated  by  E.  S.  Haldane,  1S92. 
Vol.  I.  p.  1. 


BIO  GR  A PH  IC  A L SHE  TCII. 


Hegel’s  external  biography  is  even  more  uneventful  than 
that  of  most  men  of  thought  — the  Alexanders  and  Caesars 
of  the  intellectual  world.  The  mere  subjective  private 
characteristics,  opinions  and  prejudices  of  the  man  need 
concern  us  but  little  in  comparison  with  the  universal  ele- 
ment of  thought,  which  was  the  real  heart  of  the  man.  The 
personal  character  of  Hegel  is  not  very  interesting:  yet  it 
was  not  unworthy  of  the  philosopher  as  a man,  and  upon 
the  whole  it  may  be  said  that  it  needs  no  apology.  The 
two  points  in  which  he  has  been  most  criticised  relate  to  his 
treatment  of  Schelling  and  his  so-called  subserviency  to  the 
Prussian  government.  In  neither  of  these  respects  is  the 
reproach  thoroughly  justifiable. 

His  life  was  devoid  of  romance,  being  rather  that  of  a 
prosaic,  common-sense  man  of  the  intellectual  world.  Still, 
as  compared  with  that  of  Kant,  ein  alles  Zermalmender , the 
life  of  Hegel,  ein  alles  Umfassender,  was  much  more  that  of 
a citizen  of  the  world.  His  acquaintance  with  the  great 
literary  and  political  men  and  movements  of  his  time  was 
intimate  and  profound.  If  he  was  not  a patriot  of  Fichte’s 
type,  he  was  not  without  great  interest  and  influence  in 
politics. 

We  give  a brief  summary  of  the  events  of  his  outward 
life.1 

1 The  limits  of  space  preclude  anything  more  than  a brief  biograph- 
ical sketch  of  Hegel’s  life.  One  forgoes  with  regret  the  task  of  pre- 
senting the  fuller  biography,  with  temperate  estimate  of  it  as  a genuine, 
human,  scholarly  life  of  the  modern  Aristotle.  Rosenkranz’s  Hegel's 
Leben  and  Hegel  als  deutscher  Nationalphilosoph  afford  ample  materials 
for  such  work.  This,  however,  has  already  been  used  most  skilfully  by 
Professor  Edward  Caird,  who  gives  us  a most,  admirable  exposition 
and  estimate  of  the  whole  Hegel  in  his  volume  in  Blackwood’s  Philo- 
sophical Classics.  There  is  no  better  introduction  to  Hegel’s  personality 
and  work  needed.  Professor  Josiah  Royce  (The  Spirit  of  Modern 
Philosophy ) also  gives  a brief,  but  with  a smack  of  sharpness,  pen-sketch 
of  Hegel’s  personal  characteristics,  using  the  material  of  the  hostile 
critic  Haym  rather  than  that  of  the  eulogistic  disciple  Rosenkranz. 
Since  writing  the  following  sketch  I have,  for  the  first  time,  looked 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH. 


3 


Georg  Wilhelm  Friedrich  Hegel  was  born  at  Stuttgart. 
the'~capital  of  Wiirtemberg.  on  the  27th  of  August,  1 770, 
and  retained  throughout  life  the  Suabian  characteristics  of 
bluntness,  shrewdness,  and  of  deep  interest  in  religion  and 
in  political  affairs.  His  family  belonged  to  the  quiet  con- 
servative middie-class.  His  father  was  an  officer  in  the  fis- 
cal service  and  a decided  aristocrat.  His  mother  seems  to 
have  been  a woman  of  more  than  ordinary  intelligence,  and 
devoted  to  the  instruction  of  her  eldest  son.  She  died  when 
Hegel  was  thirteen  years  old.  How  grateful  a remembrance 
he  cherished  of  her  is  shown  in  a letter  to  his  sister  when 
he  was  fifty-five  years  old.  “To-day  is  the  anniversary  of 
mother’s  death,  which  I always  keep  in  memory  of  her.” 
His  biographer,  Rosenkranz,  says  that  his  early  youth  was 
passed  quietly  and  cheerfully,  without  any  remarkable  ex- 
periences. The  official  position  of  his  father  brought  his 
family  into  connection  with  the  higher  class  of  citizens.  In 
his  fifth  year  he  was  sent  to  the  Latin  school,  and  in  his 
seventh  he  entered  the  city  Gymnasium.  He  was  always 
an  exemplary  scholar,  and  won  the  prizes  in  every  class. 
In  the  diary  which  he  kept  from  his  fifteenth  to  his  seven- 
teenth year  there  are  traces  of  deep  ethical  sentiments, 
though  none  of  moral  conflicts.  Thus  early,  too,  the  Auf- 
klärung possessed  him.  He  inveighs  against  intolerance 
and  superstition,  and  asserts  the  necessity  of  thinking  for 
one’s  self.  From  this  diary  we  learn,  too,  that  though 
pedantic  as  a student,  he  did  not  fail  to  cultivate  the  social 
side  of  life.  He  frequented  concerts,  and  enjoyed  the  so- 
ciety of  the  pretty  maidens  he  thus  met.  Rosenkranz  notes 
two  peculiarities  of  Hegel  at  this  time  which  he  preserved 
through  life : he  was  addicted  to  taking  snuff  and  devoted 
to  playing  cards,  especially  to  whist. 

through  Dr.  J.  Hutchinson  Stirling’s  great  work  on  “ The  Secret  of 
Hegel,"  and  find  scattered  throughout  his  most  appreciative  and  valuable 
expository  work  the  most  scathing  and  harsh  terms  used  in  characteriz- 
ing Hegel. 


4 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH. 


In  his  sixteenth  year  he  began  the  habit  of  keeping  a 
Common-Place  Book  and  of  writing  out  analyses,  with  copious 
quotations,  of  every  book  of  importance  that  he  read.  He 
was  ready  to  thus  fill  his  empty  self  with  the  best  of  the 
best  authors  — to  lose  himself  in  them  that  he  might  find 
himself  enlarged  and  invigorated.  For  the  purpose  of 
putting  one’s  self  at  the  point  of  view  of  great  authors,  so 
as  to  lose  one’s  petty  self  in  them,  he  held  that  there  was  no 
better  way  than  this  writing  out  copious  extracts  from  their 
works.  This  is  the  first  experience  with  the  principle  of  edu- 
cation most  resolutely  maintained  by  Hegel  throughout  life 
in  regard  to  culture  in  general,  i.e.  the  principle  of  self-aliena- 
tion (Selbst-Entfremdung)  in  order  to  true  humanization.  But 
even  at  this  time  of  saturating  himself  with  the  thoughts  of 
others,  he  showed  that  he  was  not  merely  passive,  as  he  ex- 
presses the  greatest  admiration  of  the  Greek  world  of  culture, 
in  which  he  soon  found  himself  no  mere  pilgrim  or  alien. 
He  was  thus  early  penetrated  by  the  nobility  and  serenity  of 
the  Grecian  spirit,  and  as  early  showed  his  dislike  of  the 
prevalent  morbid  sentimentalism.  At  this  time,  too,  we  find 
traces  of  that  conservative  spirit  in  regard  to  the  observance 
of  the  customary  in  social  life  and  current  affairs  which  char- 
acterized him  throughout  life  as  a conservative  in  religion 
and  politics.  He  thought  it  to  be  but  vain  conceit  to  be 
continually  protesting  against  established  customs  and  creeds 
and  to  be  obtruding  one’s  own  whimsical  tastes  upon  the 
public.  “Virtue,”  he  said  a little  later,  “is  not  a troubling 
one’s  self  about  a peculiar  and  isolated  morality  of  one’s 
own.  The  striving  for  any  such  morality  is  futile  and  im- 
possible of  attainment.” 

The  first  trace  of  interest  in  philosophy  is  found  in  one 
of  his  note-books,  when  he  was  fifteen  years  of  age.  He 
defines  philosophy  to  be  “the  pressing  through  into  the  very 
ground  and  inner  constitution  of  human  conceptions  and 
knowledge  of  the  profoundest  truths.” 


BIO  GR  A PH  IC  A L SKE  TCH. 


5 


He  also  then  formed  an  intimate  friendship  with  the 
young  poet  Hölderlin,  with  whom  he  studied  Plato  and  the 
Greek  drama. 

Having  been  “consecrated  to  theology”  by  his  parents,  he 
entered  the  University  at  Tübingen  when  he  was  eighteen 
years  of  age.  The  first  three  years  of  the  course  were  devoted 
to  philosophical  studies,  and  the  last  two  to  theological.  He 
submitted  to  the  dull  routine  of  the  work  there  in  a becom- 
ing manner,  meantime  pursuing  his  own  private  studies, 
especially  of  the  classics.  It  was  there  he  formed  that  inti- 
mate and  fruitful  union  with  the  brilliant,  precocious  Schel- 
ling  (ein  praecox  ingeniinn,  as  his  father  designated  him),  five 
years  his  junior,  that  forms  such  an  important  chapter  in 
his  life. 

For  a time,  at  least,  he  was  stirred  by  the  revolutionary 
sentiments  that  were  so  mightily  working  then.  Together 
with  Schelling  and  other  students  he  formed  a political  club 
for  the  discussion  of  the  burning  questions  of  the  day, 
and  for  the  championing  of  the  idea  of  liberty,  equality  and 
fraternity.  He  was  a jovial  companion,  and  entered  with 
zest  into  the  various  experiences  that  characterize  the  Ger- 
man student-life.  Yet  he  had  that  dignified  sobriety  of 
manner  which  won  for  him  the  nickname  of  “old  man.” 
“ God  be  with  the  old  man  ” was  found  written  by  a fellow- 
student  in  one  of  his  books.  Among  other  tasks,  as  theo- 
logical student,  he  also  performed  that  of  preaching  sermons. 
Dry  formalism  characterized  these  productions. 

He  studied  Kant’s  philosophy,  and  wTas  especially  inter- 
ested in  his  ethical  works.  But  thus  early  he  had  got  beyond 
Kant’s  dualism,  and  declared  against  the  possibility  of  pure 
moral  activity,  or  of  the  “ Practical  Reason  ” apart  from  the 
desires  of  the  sensuous  nature.  Already  he  looked  upon 
man’s  nature  as  a unitary  process  of  self-realization. 

He  left  the  University  in  1793  with  a certificate  for  good 
parts  and  character,  and  for  fair  acquaintance  with  theology 


6 


BIO  GR  A PH  IC  A L SHE  TCH. 


and  philology,  but  with  no  knowledge  whatever  of  phi- 
losophy. 

Like  many  others,  his  road  to  a place  among  the  recog- 
nized world-thinkers  lay  through  the  conditions  which  hamper 
one  in  the  situation  of  a private  tutor  in  a rich  family.  Six 
uneventful  years  were  thus  spent  by  Hegel.  But  they  v/ere 
years  of  great  intellectual  activity,  years  of  increase  of  knowl- 
edge, but  above  all  of  self-activity,  in  working  over  in  the 
alembic  of  his  own  thought  these  gathered  treasures.  His 
education  had  given  him  a bias  towards  theological  studies, 
and  to  the  end  of  his  life  the  study  of  religion  fascinated 
his  mind.  We  find  him  now  busied  with  exegetical  studies. 
In  1795  he  finished  writing  a Life  of  Christ.  Here,  too, 
we  find  him  noting  the  essential  elements  of  Judaism  as 
contrasted  with  the  Greek  view  of  religion,  and  even  dis- 
paraging Christianity  in  comparison  with  the  former,  though 
a few  years  later  he  had  worked  through  to  the  estimate 
of  Christianity  as  the  absolute  religion,  or  the  principle  of 
self-realization  through  self-sacrifice  alike  in  man  and  in 
God,  in  his  relation  to  man.  It  is  in  this  period,  too,  that 
we  find  the  idea  of  love  as  the  most  significant  one  to  Hegel. 
In  his  appreciation  of  it  we  find  implicit  the  whole  of  his 
later  intellectual  system.  In  the  movement  of  love  he  saw 
the  dialectic  leading  out  of  self  into  its  other,  in  order  to 
its  own  self-realization.  Here,  too,  we  find  him  making  that 
laborious  study  of  history,  which  later  gave  him  the  basis 
for  his  Philosophy  of  History. 

His  interest  in  politics  also  led  him  to  a fresh  study  of 
Kant’s  ethical  treatises,  that  of  the  Philosophy  of  Right , 
appearing  in  1797,  and  that  of  The  Metaphysic  of  Ethics,  in 
1798.  Hegel  strove  to  unite  the  two  conceptions  of  positive 
law  and  subjective  morality  into  a higher  one,  which  he  first 
named  “Life,”  and  later  “Social  Morality  (i.e.  Sittlichkeit ). 
He  protested  against  Kant’s  utter  subjugation  of  nature 
and  his  dismemberment  of  humanity  ( Zerstücklung  des  Men- 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH. 


7 


scheu ) into  a casuistry  arising  from  the  absoluteness  of  the 
conception  of  duty. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  the  Wiirtemberg  Diet  was  held 
to  promulgate  a new  constitution  based  upon  the  principle 
of  the  freedom  of  person  and  property  of  all  citizens.  The 
king  favored  this  constitution,  but  the  aristocratic  classes, 
with  their  vested  privileges,  protested  against  it  in  the  name 
of  “good  old  German  rights.”  Here  Hegel  took  his  stand 
with  the  king  against  the  prerogative  of  feudalism,  the  privi- 
lege of  the  guild  and  the  purchased  monopoly  of  the  rich, 
for  the  king  was,  in  this  instance,  the  representative  of 
rational  freedom,  of  the  true  idea  of  the  State. 

Through -all  these  theological,  historical  and  practical 
studies  there  was  the  nascent  life  of  the  Idea  Ithrobbing, 
which  was  to  systematize  all  into  the  concrete  unity  of  his 
later  philosophy.  It  grew  and  took  shape  and  form  through 
them.  He  did  not  at  first  set  himself  the  task  of  finding 
such  a concrete  principle.  He  did  not  “make  his  studies 
in  public,”  as  he  said  of  Schelling,  but  he  felt  that  he  was 
making  advances  which  would  eventually  come  to  light  in 
a full  orbed  system.  Beginning  with  particular  questions 
pressing  on  him  for  solution,  he  was,  as  he  says,  “driven 
onward  to  philosophy,  and,  through  reflection,  to  transform 
the  ideal  of  his  youth  into  a system.”  This  “system”  he 
put  in  writing  in  the  year  1798.  The  above  quotation  is 
from  a letter  to  Schelling,  appealing  to  him  as  the  one  most 
likely  to  aid  him  in  entering  upon  a public  career  as  phil- 
osopher. In  January,  1801,  he  went  to  Jena,  where  he 
championed  Schelling’s  Identity-Philosophy  against  that  of 
Fichte.  In  1802  he  united  with  Schelling  in  publishing  a 
“ Critical  Journal  of  Philosophy,”  in  which  the  common- 
sense  dualism  of  mind  and  matter  was  the  stock  object 
of  attack,  as  well  as  the  philosophy  of  subjectivity.  The 
Identity- Philo sophy , however  differently  held  by  Schelling 
and  Hegel,  furnished  “the  conception  of  a unity  above  all 


8 


RELATION  TO 


differences,  which  manifests  itself  in  all  differences,  and 
to  which  all  differences  must  refer  for  their  explanation.” 
From  Privat-docent  he  became  Professor  in  the  University 
in  1805. 

In  1807  he  published  his  first  important  book,  the  Phae- 
nomenologie  des  Geistes , which  he  finished  amid  the  thunders 
of  the  battle  of  Jena.  He  seemed  to  have  been  as  absorbed 
in  this  work  as  Archimedes  at  the  siege  of  Syracuse.  In 
“ this  voyage  of  discovery  ” Hegel  touched  and  illuminated 
and  criticised  all  the  various  standpoints  of  ethical  and 
speculative  philosophy.  From  1808  to  1816  he  was  Pro- 
fessor in  the  Gymnasium  at  Nürnberg,  publishing  his  Logik 
in  1816.  For  a year  he  was  Professor  at  Heidelberg,  where 
he  published  his  Encyclopädie  der  philosophischen  Wissen- 
schaften, in  which  he  gave  his  whole  system  in  detail  and 
in  scientific  form.  In  1818  he  was  called  to  the  most  im- 
portant chair  of  philosophy  in  Germany  — that  recently 
filled  by  Fichte  in  the  University  of  Berlin.  From  this  time 
till  his  death  in  1831  he  was  recognized  as  the  greatest 
teacher  of  philosophy  in  Germany.  To  fill  out  this  out- 
line of  dates  and  places,  so  as  to  give  a biography  of  such 
a thinker,  would  require  an  exposition  of  the  whole  of  his 
intellectual  deed.  To  portray  him  as  he  was,  would  be  to 
reproduce  him  as  he  thought.  In  order  to  determine  the 
place  of  ethics  in  his  whole  system,  it  is  at  least  necessary 
to  give  a brief  outline  of  his  Encyclopedia  of  the  Philosophical 
Sciences.  Before  doing  this,  however,  we  may  glance  at  the 
ethical  thought  of  his  times. 

II. 

Relation  to  Previous  Systems. 

It  is  scarcely  possible  to  speak  of  the  relation  of  Hegel’s 
ethics  to  previous  ethical  systems, without  giving  the  relation 
of  his  philosophy  as  a whole  to  previous  systems  of  phi- 


PREVIOUS  SYSTEMS. 


9 


losophy.  To  properly  orientate  the  English  student  ten  years 
ago  by  such  a statement,  would  have  been  the  task  of  a 
whole  volume.  But  so  much  has  been  done  within  the  past 
decade  or  two  as  to  render  this  superfluous  here,  beyond  the 
general  references  given  in  the  Bibliography. 

The  Devdop7ne?it  from  Kant  to  Hegel 1 is  already  a well- 
worn  topic  even  in  English,  as  it  has  long  been  in  German. 
Hegel  is  by  common  consent  the  continuator  and  completor 
of  the  idealistic  movement  begun  by  Kant.  The  develop- 
ment of  this  movement  is  an  excellent  historical  illustration 
of  Hegel’s  own  method,  from  the  abstract  universal  through 
difference  and  particularity  to  the  concrete  synthetic  uni- 
versal. Hegel  is  said  to  have  burned  his  bridges  behind 
him.  Stirling  will  have  it  that  he  was  always  “ a crafty 
borrower,”  using  and  then  abusing  his  predecessors.  But 
the  bridges  of  thought  are  incombustible,  and  it  is  not  diffi- 
cult to  trace  the  continuity  of  Hegel’s  thought  with  that  of 
Kant  through  the  diversity  of  Fichte  and  Schelling.  Hegel, 
for  the  most  part,  leaves  out  names  and  dates,  abstracting 
the  essence  of  systems  and  integrating  them  into  his  own 
system.  His  intimate  relation  to  Kant,  however,  is  best 
shown  by  the  polemic  which  he  constantly  wages  against  all 
parts  of  Kant’s  system,  especially  his  ethical  theory.  In 
relation  to  Kant,  Stirling  shuts  up  Hegel  in  the  single 
sentence:  “Hegel  simply  conceives  the  ego  to  develop  into 
its  own  categories  and,  these  being  complete,  externalization 
to  result  from  the  same  law.”  This  was  however  no  simple 
matter,  but  rather  the  prodigious  labor  of  the  concept  itself. 
So  too,  to  shut  up  Hegel  in  a sentence  in  relation  to  Kant’s 
ethical  theory  we  might  say,  — he  simply  (rather,  complexly) 
gave  an  exposition  of  the  course  that  the  abstract  universal 
law  or  “Categorical  Imperative”  of  Kant  must  take  and  has 
taken  in  becoming  definite,  concrete,  realized,  incarnate  in 
the  ethical  life  of  humanity. 


1 The  title  of  Professor  Andrew  Seth’s  volume. 


IO 


RELATION  TO 


The  starting  point  of  both  Kant  and  Hegel  was  man  as 
thinking  will.  But  Kant  considers  the  will  of  subjective  man 
in  unattainable  identity  with  the  universal  will  of  the  tran- 
scendent intelligible  world,  while  Hegel  gives  us  the  vital 
synthesis  of  these  two  in  his  conception  of  the  ethical  world 
in  which  each  one  has  his  station  and  definite  duties.  The 
categorical  imperative  upon  both  was  Tvwdt  aeavrov  on  its 
practical  side,  the  will.  They  differed  chiefly  in  their  con- 
ception of  the  aeavrov.  whose  exegesis  they  attempted.1 
With  Kant  it  was  the  abstract,  subjective  self ; with  Hegel 
it  was  the  concrete,  objective,  the  completely  ethicized  or 
socialized  self.  Kant  lived  and  labored  under  the  concep- 
tions of  the  eighteenth  century  rationalism,  which  held  that 
reason  was  innate  in  every  man  as  a sum  total  of  clear,  fixed 
notions,  while  Hegel  considered  reason  as  an  immanent 
impulse  of  rationality  that  was  continually  realizing  itself  in 
li hinan  experience.  They  both  had  a metaphysic  of  ethics. 
But  with  Kant  this  was  forever  unutterable,  with  Hegel  it 
had  been  continually  uttering  itself  in  the  institutions  of 
man.  With  one  it  was  formless,  with  the  other  it  was  the 
continuously  self-realizing  Word  that  from  the  beginning 
was  formative  of  the  moral  organism  of  humanity.  The  one 
looked  solely  within,  the  other  looked  outward  for  the  self 
to  be  studied.  Again  with  Kant  the  true  res  interna  was 
absolutely  supersensible.  With  Hegel  it  was  expressed  in 
definite  and  increasingly  adequate  forms  in  the  res  publica 
of  the  external  world  of  man’s  activity.  Hence  he  makes 
his  “ Philosophy  of  History”  an  illustrative  exposition  of  his 
science  of  ethics.  The  State,  in  the  most  concrete  sense  of 
this  termpif  the  aeavrov  manifesting  itself  in  temporal  con- 
ditions. The  history  of  the  world  is  the  tribunal  through 
which  man  utters  the  forms  of  the  categorical  imperative 
heard  in  the  supersensible  world.  Let  us  say  in  brief,  then, 

1 I quote  here  and  elsewhere  in  this  Introduction  from  my  article  on 
Hegel's  Ethics  in  “The  International  Journal  of  Ethics,”  January,  1892. 


PREVIOUS  SYSTEMS. 


1 1 

that  the  difference  between  Kant  and  Hegel  may  be  formu- 
lated as  the  difference  between  an  abstract  and  a concrete 
atavTov. 

Hegel  never  ceased  to  inveigh  against  the  vice  of  abstract- 
ness. His  whole  work  consists  in  starting  from,  criticising, 
and  passing  beyond  various  abstract  conceptions  to  a real 
concrete  in  which  alone  they  find  their  place  as  organic 
phases  or  members.  That  which  is  true  relatively  to  its 
correlate  is  false  when  abstracted  from  its  correlate.  And 
both  correlates  are  true  only  when  they  pass  through  this 
category  of  reciprocity  to  the  organism  which  they  both 
imply  and  demonstrate.  The  empirical  and  the  noumenal 
self;  the  pure  reason  and  the  practical  reason;  subjective 
freedom  and  conditioning  environment;  duty  and  the  good, 
— these  are  some  of  the  elements  of  ethical  man  that  Kant 
abstracted  from  their  organic  process,  wherewith  to  build 
his  airy  castle  of  morality.  Abstractions,  every  one  of  them, 
says  Hegel,  who  endeavors  to  lead  through  them  to  the 
more  concrete  view.  We  may,  however,  select  two  terms 
which  will  illustrate  the  difference  between  Kant  and  Hegel 
in  ethics,  — i.e.,  Moralität  and  Sittlichkeit , both  of  which  are 
used  by  the  Germans  for  what  we  call  morality.  The  first 
denotes  the  morality  of  the  heart  or  of  the  conscience.  The 
latter  denotes  conventional  morality,  or  the  objective  cus- 
toms that  are  recognized  as  moral  mores , Sitten ). 

The  first  is  the  individual  conscience,  the  second  is  the 
social  conscience.  Hegel  would  say  that  there  would  be  no 
Moralität  without  Sittlichkeit , while  Kant,  with  his  categor- 
ical imperative,  would  make  each  individual  an  Athanasius 
contra  mundum.  Hegel  would  say  that  there  could  be  no 
duty  without  some  objective  good  as  content  for  the  formal 
good-will.  [That  is,  there  can  be  no  abstract  self-realiza- 
tion by  the  conscientious  man,  no  good-will  without  good 
manners.  To  realize  himself  the  individual  must  do  it  in 
the  forms  of  social  man,  must  go  beyond  himself  to  be  him- 


12 


RELATION  TO 


self.  He  must  erect  himself  above  himself  and  expand  him- 
self beyond  himself  in  his  actualizing  of  his  good-will.  Only 
in  the  objective  forms  of  his  station  can  he  find  his  duties. 
Otherwise  his  morality  is  sure  to  be  peevish,  cranky,  and" 
tyrannical,  though,  as  a Simon  Stylites,  he  may  write  the 
title  of  saint  before  his  name.  Hegel  makes  most  trenchant 
criticisms  1 of  Kant’s  formal  law,  showing  that  as  an  abstract 
universal  it  can  neither  suggest  any  particular  duties  nor 
test  the  rightness  of  rules  otherwise  suggested.  It  can  only 
be  a voice  thundering  in  the  inner  Sinai,  “thou  shalt,”  with- 
out power  to  proceed  to  decalogic  or  monologic  specification 
of  what  to  do.  Only  an  objective  standard  of  right  can 
afford  the  ground  of  private  judgment  and  render  it  other 
than  mere  wilfulness  or  mis-judgment.  Pythagoras  had  this 
in  view  when  he  said  that  the  best  education  one  could  desire 
for  his  son  would  be  to  have  him  become  a citizen  of  a 
nation  with  good  institutions.  On  the  other  hand,  such  good 
institutions  are  impossible  without  the  element  of  Moralität. 
Society  does  not  exist  apart  from  the  individual.  It  is  rather 
an  organism  of  organisms,  whose  Sittlichkeit  expresses  the 
immanent  Moralität  of  its  people.  It  exists  in  and  through 
the  life  of  its  members.  Hegel’s  conception  combatted 
both  an  abstract  individualism  and  an  abstract  societarian- 
ism.  His  ethics  are  the  result  of  the  organically  related  ele- 
ments of  abstract  personal,  or  external,  rights  and  Moralität. 
Plis  Sittlichkeit  is  the  very  life  of  the  most  concrete  form  of 
the  self  or  man,  — i.  e.,  the  State.  It  is  the  science  of  this 
body  politic  in  its  movement  of  self-realization,  in  which  also 
the  individual  realizes  himself,  because  its  realization  is  what 
he  must  enter  into  in  order  to  be  what  he  ought  to  be. 

We  should  note  that  nothing  could  be  more  false  to  Hegel 
than  to  translate  his  Sittlichkeit  by  mere  conventionality  or 
his  Sitten  by  mere  customs.  This  would  be  to  take  out  the 

1 Hegel’s  Werke , i.  313,  referred  to  by  Professor  Caird,  “The  Phi- 
losophy of  Kant,”  ii.  186. 


PREVIOUS  SYSTEMS. 


*3 


vital  heart  which  formed,  received  and  obeys  loyally  its  own 
customs.  The  child  thoroughly  permeated  by  the  family 
spirit  yields  glad  obedience  to  family  customs.  The  patriot, 
in  peace  as  in  war,  observes  his  national  customs  and  laws 
as  expressions  of  his  own  true  will.  There  is  no  mere  blind 
conservatism  in  all  this,  but  rather  the  same  vital  spirit 
which  goes  on  to  reform  old  customs,  adapting  them  to  the 
new  and  higher  forms  of  life.  The  morality  of  the  individual 
is  possible  only  in  this  realm  of  the  ethical  ( sittlich ) world. 
He  must  have  suckled  at  the  breast  of  his  environing  ei9os 
and  have  converted  it  into  flesh  of  his  flesh  and  bone  of  his 
bone.  There  is  to  be  found  the  material  and  the  standard 
of  his  own  morality.  “ The  ethical  life  of  the  individual  is 
but  a pulse-beat  of  the  whole  system  and  itself  the  whole 
system.”  All  education  is  the  art  of  making  men  ethical 
(sittlic/i),  of  transforming  the  old  Adam  into  the  new  Adam. 
“The  child  is  the  mere  possibility  of  a moral  being.”1 

Obedience  is  the  beginning  of  practical  morality.  His  dis- 
cipline is  the  entering  fulness,  through  which  he  becofnes 
a son,  brother,  husband,  father,  citizen  and  a cultured  man. 
Hegel  throughout  holds  in  organic  relation  both  elements 
of  solidarity  and  independence.  Nothing  could  be  fur- 
ther than  his  theory  from  the  mechanical,  conservative 
conventionality  of  Chinese  morality.  He  says  that  “the 
distinguishing  feature  of  the  Chinese  is  that  everything 
belonging  to  the  spirit  — unconstrained  morality,  heart,  in- 
ward religion  - — is  alien  to  it.”  Again,  he  says  : “Custom, 
activity  without  opposition,  for  which  there  is  only  a formal 
duration,  in  which  the  fulness  and  zest  that  originally 
characterized  the  aim  of  life,  is  out  of  the  question.  This 
is  death  to  individuals  and  nations,  or  mere  nullity  and 
tedium.  Only  the  adoption  of  some  new  purpose  can 
awaken,  can  revivify  such  people.”  2 

1 Cf.  Hegel’s  Werke , Band  I.,  396  and  399. 

2 Hegel’s  Philosophy  of  History,  pp.  144  and  78. 


14 


RELATION  TO 


The  difference  between  the  ethics  of  Kant  and  Hegel 
may  also  be  expressed  in  these  two  formulas:  “Duty  for 
duty’s  sake”  and  “ My  station  and  its  duties.”  With  Kant 
Duty  is  the  abstract  transcendent  law  of  the  intelligible 
world  which  no  man  can  ever  realize,  and  which  Duty  yet 
commands  man  to  realize  for  its  own  sake.  The  absolute- 
ness of  Duty  was  sometimes  insisted  upon  by  both  Kant 
and  Fichte  in  a thoroughly  inhuman  way,  as  utterly  divorced 
from  all  joys  of  the  heart  and  secular  happiness.  It  was 
against  this  moral  rigorism  of  formal  duty,  slighting  all 
regard  to  the  phase  of  subjective  needs  and  to  the  diversi- 
ties of  individualities  and  situations  that  Jacobi  made  his 
now  classical  protest:  “Nay,  I am  that  atheist,  that  profane 
person,  who  in  despite  of  the  will  that  wills  nothing  (i.  e.,  in 
despite  of  the  abstract  formal  precepts  of  morality)  will  lie, 
like  the  dying  Desdemona;  prevaricate  and  deceive,  like 
Pylades  representing  himself  to  be  Orestes;  will  murder, 
like  Timoleon;  break  law  and  oath,  like  Epaminondas  and 
Johann  de  Witt;  resolve  on  suicide,  like  Otho;  commit  sac- 
rilege, like  David;  nay,  pluck  ears  of  corn  on  the  Sabbath, 
only  because  I am  hungry  and  the  law  was  made  for  man 
and  not  man  for  the  law,”  claiming  the  right  for  such  deeds 
against  the  absolute  irrational  letter  of  the  law.  Though 
Hegel  (in  1802)  criticised1  Jacobi  very  severely  and  pointed 
out  the  danger  of  “Jacobi’s  principle  of  the  beauty  of  indi- 
viduality ” leading  to  the  exalting  of  sentiment  and  instinct 
to  be  the  judge  of  the  ethical,  he  afterwards  (in  1817)  recog- 
nized the  element  of  truth  in  Jacobi’s  fierce  protest  against 
moral  rigorism.  Kant’s  emphasis  on  this  element  of  morality 
was  a needed  corrective  of  hedonism,  but  it  could  afford  no 
table  of  definite  duties  to  be  performed:  He  was  himself 

no  Moses  to  bring  it  down  from  the  mount  on  tables  of 
stone.  Indeed  to  define  or  particularize  the  law  would  be 
to  destroy  its  universality  and  thus  its  imperativeness.  The 


1 Hegel’s  Werke,  Band  I.,  105-111. 


PREVIOUS  SYSTEMS. 


15 

good  will  could  not  be  found  on  earth,  because  the  law  could 
give  no  laws.  “Obey  duty”  could  therefore  mean,  do  no 
particular  deed,  because  no  particular  is  equal  to  the  uni- 
versal. It  could  only  be  done  by  the  absolute  annihilation 
of  the  individual,  for  you  cannot  universalize  any  particular 
maxim,  nor  can  you  particularize  the  formal  universal  law 
without  marring  it. 

Hegel  was  the  Moses  to  bring  the  law  down  from  the 
mount.  The  tables  of  stone  were  the  deposit  of  reason, 
realized  more  or  less  consciously,  in  the  practical  ways  of 
a people,  in  the  substantial  constitutive  spirit  of  men 
as  expressed  in  traditional  and  current  codes.  Against 
Kant’s  dictum  “ The  good  ought  to  be  ” Hegel  opposed  the 
assertion  “The  good  is."  The  law  was  found  throbbing 
through  the  social  organism  of  humanity,  its  vital  and  syn- 
thetic principle.  In  living  the  concrete  life  of  one’s  station 
and  people,  the  individual  was  fulfilling  duty.  The  life  of 
the  social  community  (family,  society,  nation)  exemplifies  the 
concrete,  objective,  inclusive  law.  It  is  the  moral  organism 
in  which  the  individual  must  be  a vital  organic  member.  At 
every  stage  of  every  community  there  is  present  a world  so 
far  moralized.  The  ethical  man  is  the  wise  man  who  knows 
and  identifies  himself  with  his  community.  The  immoral 
man  is  the  one  who  is  out  of  harmony  with  this  good  will, 
the  will  for  the  good  of  the  community.  We  should  know 
better  than  to  think  that  we  know  better  than  this  larger, 
communal  self. 

Duty  thus  becomes  definite  and  concrete.  I belong  to 
certain  circles  of  fellow-men.  I live  in  certain  social  tissues. 
This  is  my  station  in  life.  To  know  this  is  to  know  my 
duties.  I must  realize  myself  by  fulfilling  all  the  rela- 
tions about  my  station.  I must  fill  my  place,  perform  a 
definite  function  in  a definite  organism,  be  a vital  mem- 
ber of  it.  Organs  and  organism  mutually  live  and  work  for 
each  other.  “The  individual’s  morality  is  a pulse-beat 


i6 


RELATION  TO 


of  the  whole  system  and  itself  the  whole  system.”  Thus 
the  abstract  formal  universal  law  of  Kant  is  exchanged  for 
a reflection  in  the  individual  of  the  concrete, objective  ethical 
world  of  his  community.  It  becomes  an  immanent  intelli- 
gible universal,  definite  and  concrete. 

In  Kant  we  find  the  emphasis  put  on  the  individual. 
Hegel  emphasizes  rather  the  function  of  the  objective  social 
organism,  which  he  calls  the  State,  to  rear  the  individual 
into  that  condition  where  respect  for  the  right  is  combined 
with  ethical  bea.ii.tv.  “This  lofty  intuition,”  says  Rosen- 
kranz, “is  the  Hellenic  trait  in  Hegel,  which,  however,  did 
not  lead  him  to  abate  a tittle  of  the  sharpness  and  energy  of 
the  Germanic  principle  of  individuality.”  Hegel  himself 
declared  that  the  study  of  the  master-pieces  of  classical 
literature  should  be  “the  spiritual  bath,  the  profane  baptism 
which  imparts  to  the  soul  the  first  and  inamissible  tone  and 
tincture  of  good  taste  and  science.”  1 Certainly  the  anarchic 
conception  of  “ Man  versus  the  State  ” was  as  foreign  to 
Hegel’s  thought  as  it  would  have  been  to  a citizen  of  Athens. 
He  would  rather  say,  you  cannot  be  a man  without  the  State, 
you  cannot  be  a whole  unless  you  are  a vital  member  of  a 
whole. 

This,  perhaps,  is  as  far  as  Hegel  brings  us  in  the  present 
treatise.  But,  as  we  shall  show,  this  is  only  a part  of  a larger 
whole  into  which  Hegel  carries  up  the  self-realizing  process 
of  the  will  into  the  absolute  realm,  carries  up  humanity  on 
the  mount  of  transfiguration,  — into  the  realm  of  Absolute 
Spirit,  which  is  the  real  presupposition,  cause  and  end  of 
objective  spirit , or  of  man  in  secular  relations. 

We  might  thus  go  per  saltum , as  Hegel  himself  did,  from 
Kant  to  Hegel.  But  we  should  at  least  notice  the  media- 
tion of  the  ethical  philosophy  of  Fichte,  whose  personality 
and  ethical  enthusiasm  really  eclipses  his  philosophy  in 
worth  and  interest.  Like  Jacobi,  he  had  a heart  of  fire, 


] Karl  Schmidt’s  Geschichte  der  Pädagogik,  TV.,  678.  Edition  of  1862. 


PREVIOUS  SYSTEMS. 


J7 


but  unlike  him,  he  followed  his  head,  endeavoring  to  com- 
plete the  work  of  Kant.  Kant  refused  to  own  this  work, 
being  unable  to  recognize  the  skeleton  which  he  had  formed 
when  clothed  in  flesh  and  blood  by  Fichte.  Fichte  claimed 
to  harmonize  Kant’s  two  Critiques , reducing  his  dualism  to 
the  monism  of  subjective  idealism  in  morals  as  weil  as  in 
philosophy.  Fie  made  the  ego  to  be  the  author  of  both 
the  moral  law  and  of  the  endeavor  to  realize  it.  The  prin- 
ciple of  unity  thus  attained  is  the  ego  itself.  This  alone, 
he  claimed,  could  be  the  true  significance  of  Kant’s  autonomy 
of  the  will.  Beyond  the  ego  there  is  naught,  not  even  the 
ghostly  Ding  an  sich , nor  the  suprasensible  intelligible  world. 
This  is  subjective  idealism,  where  the  ego  both  forms  (macht) 
and  creates  ( schafft ) its  own  world,  in  definite  contradiction 
to  Kant’s  dictum,  macht  zwar  der  Verstand  die  Natur , aber 
er  schafft  sie  nicht.  It  was  owing  to  this  character  of  sub- 
jective idealism  that  Flegel  relegates  it  to  the  rank  of  an 
historical  and  superceded  system.  He  says  that  Fichte 
denied  all  external  reality,  making  the  ego  to  produce  its 
own  non-ego  for  conduct  as  well  as  for  thought.  Still  Fichte 
held  that  in  morality  the  identity  — ego=non-ego  — was  never 
fully  realized,  the  identity  thus  remaining  a subjective  one, 
and  a struggle  with  self  the  essence  of  morality.  Thus,  the 
highest  point  of  the  system  is  only  a must  ( sollen ) and  a 
striving  (streben).  In  showing  this  impossible  demand,  never 
able  to  attain  objectivity,  Hegel  leaves  the  system  as  nothing 
more  than  subjective  idealism  of  the  empirical  ego.1  That 
Hegel  failed  to  do  Fichte  justice  is  evident  to  any  reader 
of  Fichte,  though  we  feel  this  to  be  a slight  done  to  his 
personality  and  moral  enthusiasm  rather  than  any  injustice 
to  his  theory  of  ethics.'2 

1 For  Hegel’s  criticism  of  Fichte  cf.  Hegel’s  Werke,  Band  I. 

2 “ It  is  difficult  to  speak  calmly  of  Fichte.  His  life  stirs  one  like  a 
trumpet.  Fie  combines  the  penetration  of  a philosopher  with  the  fire 
of  a prophet  and  the  thunder  of  an  orator  ; and  over  all  his  life  lies  the 
beauty  of  a stainless  purity.”  — Chamber's  Encyclopedia. 


iS 


RELATION  TO 


Accepting  this  criticism  as  true,  taking  Fichte  at  his  word 
as  a subjective  idealist,  we  may  say  that  he  utterly  outdid 
Kant’s  boasted  Copernican  feat,  not  only  making  the  stars  to 
revolve  around  the  ego  as  the  central  sun,  but  making  the 
ego  to  be  the  creator  of  the  whole  moral  firmament  itself. 
Thus  in  morals  with  Fichte  the  appeal  must  always  be  to  the 
individual’s  conviction  of  duty.  Ffe  must  act  according  to 
his  conscience.  I am  not  aware  that  Hegel  or  any  other 
one  has  directly  charged  Fichte  with  the  evils  that  naturally 
flow  from  the  principle  of  the  right  of  private  judgment,  the 
evils  of  individualism,  moral  atomism,  moral  mis-judgment, 
though  these  are  consequences  of  all  subjective  idealism. 
The  private  conscience  can  have  no  judgment,  for  a judg- 
ment is  essentially  a universal  as  Kant  taught.  It  can  only 
have  whims,  caprices,  likings  and  opinions  of  a private  and 
therefore  of  a particular  and  partial  character.  Unsaturated 
with  the  communal  universal  life,  ceasing  to  be  a pulse-beat 
in  the  system,  his  judgment  loses  the  character  of  a judg- 
ment or  law. 

Following  Kant,  Fichte  at  first  separates  even  more 
sharply  between  the  spheres  of  Right  (legality)  and  Ethics 
(morality),  making  the  former  to  be  utterly  independent 
of  the  latter,  and  excluding  it  entirely  from  the  realm  of 
morality.  Right  (legal)  is  merely  mechanical,  external  force 
holding  individuals  in  the  bonds  of  civil  society.  In  morality 
the  individual  is  purely  autonomous.  The  State  is  merely  a 
social  compact,  proceeding  from  the  want  of  confidence  and 
sociality.  In  his  later  philosophy,  however,  he  puts  more 
emphasis  upon  the  State  as  the  condition  of  morality,  making 
it  to  rest,  not  on  the  compact  of  individuals,  but  upon  the 
aim  of  the  species.  To  it  belongs  the  imposition  of  all 
forms  of  culture  and  activity.  Its  final  aim  is  to  make  ethi- 
cality  ( Sittlichkeit ) possible.  Its  power  is  both  obligatory 
and  enfranchising,  in  the  education  of  the  race.1  Thus  he 


1 Cf.  Adolph  Lasson’s  Rechtsphilosophie,  6 and  100-102. 


PREVIOUS  SYS  TEA/S. 


1 9 


approaches  more  nearly  the  position  of  Hegel’s  Philosophy 
of  the  State , though  in  no  scientific  form.  Like  Schelling, 
in  his  latter  day  he  ran  into  mystical  pantheism  and  abso- 
lutism. 

We  need  say  but  little  of  the  relation  of  Hegel  to  Schel- 
ling, of  their  early  pact,  of  Hegel’s  apparent  discipleship,  of 
the  lasting  unpleasantness  between  them  after  the  publica- 
tion of  the  Vorwort  to  Hegel’s  Phänomenologie  des  Geistes. 
Beginning  as  an  ardent  Fichtean,  Schelling  soon  developed 
in  his  Identity-Philosophy  an  abstract  pantheism.  The 
Program  of  the  Critical  Journal  of  Philosophy , which  Schel- 
ling and  Hegel  edited  jointly,  asserted  that  “the  great  imme- 
diate interest  of  philosophy  is  to  put  God  again  absolutely 
at  the  head  of  the  system,  as  the  one  ground  of  all,  the 
principium  essendi  et  cognoscendiP  Hegel  took  this  in  earnest, 
and  ever  remained  faithful  to  it,  applying  it  to  the  solution 
of  ethical  antinomies  and  to  the  explanation  of  the  ethical 
life  of  mankind.  His  course  onward  was  towards  a more 
concrete  conception  of  the  Absolute  as  Subject,  as  Spirit, 
while  Schelling’s  course  was  the  reverse,  making  the  Abso- 
lute to  be  the  mere  indifference  point  or  the  identity  of  in- 
determinate substance.  It  is  with  this  blank,  unspiritual 
principle  that  Hegel  definitely  breaks  in  his  Preface  to  his 
first  independent  work,  Die  Phäno7netiologie  des  Geistes.  “ In 
such  philosophy,”  he  says,  “the  Absolute  is,  as  it  were,  shot 
out  of  a pistol.”  “ It  is  the  night  in  which  all  cows  are  black.” 
That  is,  in  it  all  different  things  — right  and  wrong,  good 
and  bad  — are  the  same.  This  blank  Absolute  Substance 
of  Schelling  furnished  no  foundation  for  ethics,  while  the 
eternally  self-realized  and  self-realizing  Subject  of  Hegel 
does.  God  is  the  beginning  and  the -goal,  the  orderer  of  the 
moral  order  of  the  world  and  the  creator  of  the  moral  ideal. 
It  is  this  divine  principle  which  constitutes  the  intellectual 
and  ethical  cosmos  into  which  man  is  born  for  self-realiza- 
tion. For  the  individual,  self-realization  is  to  come  through 


20 


RELATION  TO 


renunciation  of  the  empty  self  in  favor  of  the  larger  and 
truer  self  mirrored  for  him  in  the  various  circles  of  the  social 
organism,  and  ultimately  in  the  institutions  of  Absolute 
Spirit  — Art,  Religion  and  Philosophy.  As  to  Hegel’s 
crafty  indebtedness  to  Fichte  and  Schelling,  it  is  to  be  con- 
sidered that  we  may  make  and  read  a patchwork  of  the  two 
that  seems  like  Hegel,  but  that  we  read  it  in  the  light  of  the 
full,  organic,  scientific  work  of  Hegel  himself.  At  best,  his 
predecessors’  works  were  but  the  quarry  whence  his  genius 
builded  a great  structure. 

Hegel’s  ethical  view  was  also  in  marked  contrast  with  and 
opposition  to  the  ethics  of  the  general  eighteenth  century 
view  known  as  the  Aufklärung , edairdsscment  and  free 
thought  or  rationalism. 

The  Aufklärung  was  essentially  a protest  against  all  tra- 
ditional dogmas,  cults,  creeds  and  institutions.1  The  trans- 
cendent worth  of  the  illuminated  and  enfranchised  individual 
of  that  time  was  a very  delirium  of  self-conceited  private 
judgment,  setting  up  private  reason  as  the  valid  tribunal 
before  which  to  summon  all  manner  of  hitherto  valid  laws 
and  customs.  It  was  a conceited  enlightment  ( edairdsse - 
ment)  or  a clearing  up  {Auf  klärung)  that,  as  Schelling  said, 
had  turned  into  a clearing  out  (H^jklärung)  of  all  the  wisdom 
and  practical  experience  of  the  race.  This  produced  that 
ethical  atomism  in  which  each  atom  was  independent  of 
every  other  one  and  of  all  forms  of  association  in  which  they 
had  been  enslaved  by  priestcraft  and  statecraft.  Rousseau 
asserted  this  freedom  and  validity  of  the  merely  “ natural 
man,”  decivilized  as  far  as  possible.  But  the  natural  man 
was  not  large  enough  to  measure  all  things,  to  appreciate 
and  estimate  rightly  the  universal  human  reason  already 
done  into  ethical  forms  of  life.  Hence  it  virtually  dropped 
all  judgment,  all  application  of  universal  principles,  and 

1 For  Hegel’s  exposition  and  criticism  of  this  movement  consult 
Phän.  des  Geistes,  356-437  ; and  Philosophy  of  History , 456-474. 


PR  E VI O US  S YS  TEAIS. 


2 X 

stuck  to  its  own  private  pint-cup  measure.  Kant,  in  refut- 
ing Hume  by  demonstrating  the  existence  of  a priori  princi- 
ples of  judgment,  of  categories  absolutely  independent  of 
experience,  did  not  himself  attain  to  real  objectivity  and 
validity.  While  proclaiming  universal  and  objective  princi- 
ples he  still  made  them  subjective , and  hence  his  philosophy 
could  not  stem  the  current  which  insisted  upon  privatizing 
these  universals  instead  of  insisting  upon  the  private  con- 
science universalizing  itself  in  the  communal  traditional 
conscience.  Hegel  asserts  1 that  tius-fcecdom  arwl-mdt^wd- 
ence  and  validity  of  private  judgment  belongs  to  the  Kantian 
]^Ttte50^hyi  In  Germany,  however,  he  thinks  it  remained 
rather  a “tranquil  theory,”  while  in  France  it  was  tried  in 
practical  life,  where  it  culminated  in  the  Reign  of  Terror. 

Now,  Hegel  polemicized  persistently  and  strenuously 
against  the  moral  as  well  as  against  the  intellectual  views  of 
this  rationalism  of  the  understanding.  He  had  been  early 
attracted  by  the  glamour  of  its  enthusiasm  for  the  abstract 
rights  of  man,  as  against  all  enslaving  customs  of  existing 
ethical  institutions.  He  also  early  saw  its  utter  negativeness, 
“ignoring  the  holy  and  tender  web  of  human  affections.” 
He  insisted  that  Reason  was  not  so  late  born  as  the  eigh- 
teenth  century,  but  that  it  had  always  been  regnant  in  the 
practical  world ; that  it  had  always  been  operative  in  the 
formation  of  all  social  customs  and  institutions  which  bound 
men  together;  that  it  was  the  realsubstance  of  the  concrete 
life  ot  civilized  man.  This  enabled  him  to  mp^r  a11  t1^ 
negative  criticism  of  existing  institutions  ( family,  society, 
state  and  church)  and  to  vindicate  their  validity  and  ration- 
ality  as  institutions  of  the  spiritJfoj.- the. -education  of  man 
into  freedom  — into  humanity.  Such,  indeed,  we  shall  find 
to  be  the  whole  argument  of  his  Ethics  as  contained  in  the 
following  “ Selections.”  Against  the  whole  rationalistic 
movement  of  free  thought  (better  designated  anti-rationalism) 


Philosophy  of  History , p.  462. 


22 


EXPOSITION. 


Hegel  dared  to  maintain  that  “ The  Real  is  the  Rational.” 
Even  the  most  superficial  acquaintance  with  his  philosophy, 
especially  with  his  dialectic,  suffices  to  guard  this  expression 
from  being  considered  the  equivalent  of  a pet  phrase  of  the 
very  movement  he  was  combatting,  i.  e.,  that  “ Whatever  is, 
is  right.”  The  “ Real,”  he  explains  ( Logic , § 6),  is  not  the 
accidental  actuality  of  any  and  every  sham,  but  the  vital 
substance  of  the  Divine  Reason  in  past  and  present  institu- 
tions — the  throb  of  real  rationality  which  alone  enables 
them  to  arise  and  thrive,  and  to  nurture  man  into  humanity. 
Whatever  is,  is  because  of  its  seed  or  web  of  rationality. 
The  11  is”  is  always  a phase  of  the  ought.  The  real  is 
not  and  never  has  been  “ so  feeble  as  merely  to  have  a right 
or  an  ought  to  exist  without  actually  existing  ” (Logic,  § 6). 
To  be  a man,  one  must  at  least  wear  the  clothes  of  a man. 
The  disrobed  “ natural  man  ” of  the  Aufklärung  needs  to  be 
assured  that  clothes  are  rational,  and  Hegel’s  task  in  his 
Ethics  is  to  reclothe  the  perishing  nude  infant  of  vulgar 
rationalism.  His  Philosophie  des  Rechts  is  a philosophical 
Sartor  Resartus. 


III. 

Exposition. 

We  have  said  that  it  would  be  necessary  to  give  an 
outline  of  Hegel’s  Encyclopädie  in  order  to  see  the  place 
that  ethics  holds  in  his  whole  system.  It  is  also  necessary 
to  give  this  for  another  reason.  It  has  sometimes  been 
maintained  that  Hegel  never  gave  any  thorough  exposition 
of  ethics.  Any  adequate  knowledge  of  Hegel,  however, 
easily  disposes  of  this  objection.  Hegel’s  doctrine  of  ethics 
is  found  chiefly  in  the  Philosophie  des  Rechts , which  is  an 
enlarged  exposition  of  Part  Second  of  his  Philosophie  des 
Geistes.  With  this  goes,  as  an  interpreting  and  fulfilling 
sequel,  his  Philosophy  of  History.  We  have  made  but 


EXPOSITION. 


23 


slight  reference  to  his  Phänomenologie  des  Geistes,  which 
contains  not  only  his  ethics,  but  nearly  all  other  parts  of  his 
Philosophy,  in  brilliant  and  somewhat  imaginative  form. 
Apart  from  this  earlier  and  graphic  work  (1807)  Hegel  only 
published  the  following  works. 

1.  The  Science  of  Logic — called  his  Larger  Logic,  1811- 
1816. 

2.  The  Encyclopedia  of  the  Philosophical  Sciences,  1817  and 
1827. 

3.  The  Philosophy  of  Right,  1821. 

All  the  other  volumes  of  his  Works  were  edited  from  his 
manuscripts  by  his  friends  after  his  death. 

The  Encyclopedia  contains  the  whole  system  in  the  scien- 
tific form  given  by  himself.  It  is  his  attempt  to  exhibit  his 
system  in  its  entirety.  As  we  now  have  it,  it  is  Hegel’s 
own  revised  and  enlarged  edition,  together  with  additions 
made  from  his  manuscripts  used  in  the  Lecture-room. 

This  Encyclopedia  is  not  a mere  compend  of  heterogeneous 
parts,  but  a systematic  exposition  of  all  parts  of  philosophy 
in  their  organic  relations;  that  is,  an  exposition  of  all  the 
connected  phases  of  reality  that  come  under  the  cognizance 
of  the  philosopher.  It  is  concerned  with  Absolute  Reality 
in  the  phases  of  unity,  difference  and  totality.  Hegel’s  term 
for  this  Absolute  Reality  is  the  Ldea  (/dee)  or  God.  He 
makes  three  divisions  of  the  Ldea  as 

1.  Reason  ( Vernunft). 

2.  Nature. 

3.  Spirit  (Geist). 

Otherwise,  as  he  denominates  them  : 

1.  Logic,  or  the  Science  of  the  pure  Ldea. 

2.  The  Philosophy  of  Nature. 

3.  The  Philosophy  of  Spirit. 

1.  The  first  might  better  be  termed  Metaphysics  or 
Ontology.  It  makes  abstraction  from  the  reality  of  nature 
and  finite  spirit  and  considers  only  thought  in  the  abstract. 


24 


EXPOSITION. 


It  takes  up  all  the  various  predicates  or  categories  by  which 
human  reason  has  sought  to  define  and  comprehend  the 
Universal,  the  Absolute,  beginning  with  the  most  abstract 
and  empty  of  them  all  (mere  being)  and  showing  how  each 
lower  one  criticises  and  elevates  itself  into  the  next  higher 
one,  until  restless  thought  rests  in  the  most  concrete  and 
absolute  category  possible  — the  Idea , God.  It  exhibits 
the  interconnectedness  of  all  categories  by  means  of  the 
vital  dialectic  of  difference.  It  is  a criticism  of  the  Cate- 
gories of  thought  by  itself,  in  its  march  to  thorough  compre- 
hension of  Reality,  through  partial  conceptions,  ending  with 
Absolute  Personality  as  that  which  all  the  others  imply  and 
as  that  which  includes  and  explains  them  all.1 

How  have  men  named  this  reality?  Hegel  takes  up  the 
various  answers,  only  in  scientific  rather  than  in  historical 
forms,  and  shows  their  mutual  limitations  and  filiations, 
arranging  them  in  the  order  of  their  comparative  capacity 
to  express  truth  in  the  totality  of  its  relations.  To  stop 
here  would  be  to  stop  with  the  metaphysics  of  Reality.  But 
»zrAzphysics  implies  physics,  presupposes  a realm  which  it 
enswathes  and  sustains. 

2.  This  realm  Hegel  takes  up  in  his  Philosophy  of  Nature. 

The  transition  which  he  makes  from  the  Logic  to  Nature 
is  confessedly  obscure.  It  is,  however,  none  other  than  the 
difficulty  of  the  question  of  creation  by  God,  the  transition 
from  God,  into  the  act  and  processes  of  self-alienation  or 
creation.  Hegel,  at  all  events,  makes  this  a free  act  of 
God.  He  says,  in  the  last  paragraph  of  his  Logic:  “ The 

1 It  was  in  regard  to  this  work  of  the  Logic  in  giving  a critical 
exposition  of  the  categories  of  thought  that  Hegel  made  the  following 
striking  remark  : — “If  it  is  held  a valuable  achievement  to  have  dis- 
covered some  sixty  odd  species  of  the  parrot,  a hundred  and  thirty-seven 
of  Veronica,  and  so  forth,  it  should  surely  be  held  a far  more  valuable 
achievement  to  discover  the  forms  of  reason  : Is  not  a figure  of  the 
syllogism  something  infinitely  higher  than  a species  of  parrot  or  of 
Veronica?”  Hegel’s  Werke,  Band  V.,  139. 


EXPOSITION. 


25 


Idea  is  absolutely  free;  and  its  freedom  means  that  it  does 
not  merely  pass  over  into  life,  or,  as  finite  cognition,  allow 
life  to  show  in  it,  but  in  its  own  absolute  truth  resolves  to 
let  the  element  of  its  particularity  or  of  the  first  determina- 
tion and  other-being,  the  unmediated  Idea,  as  its  reflection, 
go  forth  freely  itself  from  itself  as  Nature.”  That  is,  we 
have  the  Idea  in  its  most  abstract  form  passing  over  into 
the  phase  of  time  and  space  existence,  progressively,  how- 
ever, realizing  or  objectifying  reality  through  various  forms 
up  to  finite  spirit,  and  then,  through  the  various  stages  and 
grades  of  finite  spirit,  ultimately  up  to  God  again. 

His  philosophy  is  no  mere  naturalism  or  materialism. 
Nature  is  not  the  first  with  Hegel.  Nor  is  it  the  essentially 
evil,  as  with  the  Gnostics.  But  it  is  essentially  rational 
as  the  creation  of  the  Divine  Reason,  progressively  ascend- 
ing to  more  adequate  rational  forms,  collecting  and  elevating 
itself  till  it  reaches  the  form  of  organic  life  and  passes  into 
soul  as  the  first  form  of  finite  spirit.  Nature  is  the  matrix 
and  the  cradle  of  finite  spirit,  not  because  its  potency  brings 
forth  man  in  and  of  itself,  but  because  it  is  so  used  by  the 
immanent  Divine  Reason.  He  says:  “The  end  of  nature 
is  to  destroy  itself,  to  break  through  its  immediate  sensible 
covering,  and,  like  the  Phoenix  from  its  flames,  to  arise  from 
this  externality  new-born  as  spirit.”1  Sjfirit  is  really  the 
ground  of  the  possibility  of  nature,  rather  than  a natural 
product  of  nature.  Nature  is  simply  the  Idea  displaying  its 
own  element  of  particularity  in  the  form  of  otherness,  and 
the  gradual  reduction  of  this  form  to  its  own  absolute  form. 
In  the  last  paragraph  of  this  work  he  says:  “The  aim  of 
this  treatise  is  to  give  a picture  of  nature  in  order  to  conquer 
this  Proteus;  to  find  in  all  its  externality  only  the  mirror 
of  ourselves;  to  see  in  nature  the  free  reflexion  of  the  spirit; 
to  recognize  God  in  this  His  immediate  form  of  determinate 
being.”  2 


1 Hegel’s  ATatur-philosophic,  696. 


2 Ibid.,  698. 


26 


EXPOSITION. 


3.  The  Philosophy  of  Spirit. 

Hegel’s  transition  from  Nature  to  Spirit  is  thus  readily 
seen  to  be  clear,  explicit  and  satisfactory.  Nature  culmi- 
nates in  man,  the  interpretation  as  well  as  the  interpreter  of 
nature.  His  Philosophy  of  Spirit  includes  Subjective  Spirit 
(Anthropology  and  Psychology),  Objective  Spirit  (Rights, 
Morality  and  Social  Ethics),  and  Absolute  Spirit  (Art,  Re- 
ligion and  Philosophy).  It  is  with  the  second  division,  that 
of  Objective  Spirit,  that  we  are  here  concerned,  though  we 
must  note  in  the  sequel  how  Hegel  carries  the  whole 
process  of  finite  Spirit  up  into  the  sphere  of  Absolute  Spirit. 
All  three  parts  form  an  exposition  of  the  actualization  of 
spirit,  of  its  progressive  self-realization  from  the  lowest 
form  of  consciousness  to  its  highest,  its  return  through  im- 
mense labor  to  its  own  true,  rational  and  divine  self.  Thus 
no  one  part  can  be  taken  as  complete  in  itself.  It  is  only 
the  taking  of  the  whole  as  one  high  argument  that  preserves 
any  part  from  the  unjust  criticism  so  often  offered.  In  fact, 
the  whole  of  the  Philosophy  of  Spirit  is  an  ethical  treatise, 
if  we  use  the  term  ethics  in  the  broad  sense  of  the  self-real- 
ization of  the  human  spirit.  The  “ Selections  ” in  this 
volume  are,  however,  confined  to  his  treatment  of  Objective 
Spirit , as  fully  elaborated  in  a separate  treatise,  the  Philoso- 
phie des  Rechts,"  which  exhibits  the  free  spirit  as  it  actually 
stands  or  lives  as  thinking  will  in  the  world.  It  is  an  exhi- 
bition of  spirit  as  objectified  in  the  institutions  of  law, 
the  family,  and  the  state,  set  between  subjective  spirit  and 
Absolute  Spirit.  Thus  his  Ethics  start  from  the  natural  con- 
dition of  man,  and  lead  on  to  man  in  his  highest  relations, 
exhibiting  the  perfection  of  his  spiritual  character  in  the 
realms  of  art,  religion  and  philosophy,  ■ — the  three  media 
of  perfect  self-realization  or  of  comprehension  of  his  rela- 
tions with  the  Absolute  Spirit  of  whom  and  through  whom 
and  to  whom  are  all  things.  We  shall  note,  in  our  criticism, 
Hegel’s  apparent  failure  to  carry  ethics  up  into  this  sphere 
of  the  Absolute  Spirit. 


EXPOSITION. 


27 


Hegel’s  method  is  always  that  of  beginning  with  the  most 
abstract  phase  of  his  topic  and  following  through  the  imma- 
nent self-criticism  of  one  abstract  phase  to  another  until  the 
organic  concept  (. Begriff ) is  reached,  which  is  then  seen  to  be 
the  real  presupposition  throughout,  instead  of  being  an  in- 
ductive result.  His  true  first  principle,  his  most  concrete 
statement,  is  scarcely  perceptible  in  his  first  advances,  but 
it  comes  more  and  more  clearly  to  light,  as  the  immanent 
and  organic  principle  that  lives  in,  through,  and  above  all 
the  abstractions  that  strut  dogmatically,  aping  the  real. 
Objections  will  be  continually  raised  against  the  dogmatic 
utterances  of  Hegel  as  to  the  earlier  phases  of  right  and 
freedom,  these  being  taken  to  represent  his  own  full  opinion 
on  the  topic  in  hand.  But  he  is  only  stating  the  various 
dogmatic  standpoints  that  have  been,  or  may  be,  held  on  the 
subject — the  crude  and  imperfect  opinions  upon  which  he 
is  to  let  loose  the  dialectic  fire  to  purge  them  of  their  dross. 
“The  will  is  absolutely  free.”  “The  will  wills  the  will  and 
always  wills  itself.”  “The  ‘Person’  (abstract)  has  the  right 
to  put  his  will  into  everything  and  thereby  make  it  his  own.” 
These  and  other  examples  will  readily  be  noted  by  the 
student. 

Again  he  often  speaks  of  the  immature  as  the  fully  ripened, 
of  the  acorn  as  an  oak,  the  materials  and  plan  as  the  ca- 
thedral. But  the  one  who  reads  him  closely  can  generally 
find  how  he  guards  against  misunderstanding  by  means 
of  one  of  those  many  troublesome  phrases  noted  in  the 
Vocabulary.  The  true  way  to  read  Hegel,  in  one  sense,  is 
to  read  him  backward  — his  end  is  his  real  beginning. 
This,  however,  he  always  announces  at  the  first  in  its  poten- 
tial form  and  then  follows  through  its  stages  of  realization. 
His  order,  moreover,  is  always  the  logical  one  from  the  ab- 
stract universal  through  the  particular  to  the  universalized 
individual.  In  other  words  it  does  not  follow  the  empirical 
or  historical  order  of  the  development  of  an  institution.  He 


28 


EXPOSITION. 


starts  with  the  concept  of  the  will.  A concept  is  relatively 
a causa  sui,  a logically  self-determining  force,  potentially 
containing  all  the  contradictory  phases  taken  on  in  the 
course  of  its  self-revelation.  Just  how  or  when  any  of  these 
phases  occur  empirically  is  a matter  of  no  consequence  so 
far  as  the  science  is  concerned.  It  is  a matter  of  greatest 
consequence  that  they  should  thus  occur  and  be  the  revela- 
tion of  the  concept.  But  the  chronological  order  of  the 
various  empirical  phases  does  not  necessarily  coincide  with 
the  logical  order  of  the  concept.  The  speculative  method  is 
to  exhibit  all  these  phases  as  inherently  interrelated  and  as 
the  self-characterizations  of  the  concept  itself.  The  external 
manifestation  or  history  of  a concept  is  generally  a scene  of 
contingency.  The  speculative  method  takes  and  arranges 
all  these  partial  and  miscellaneous  forms  in  accordance  with 
the  concept,  stripping  them  of  contingency  and  organizing 
them  into  system  ; thus  exhibiting  the  rationality  (the  self- 
developing  concept)  of  their  history.  Thus  we  have  the 
real  history  of  any  institution,  as  Wallace  says,  “written,  as 
if  it  had  been,  in  evanescent  inks  — dates  are  wanting  — 
individualities  and  their  biographies  yield  up  their  place  to 
universal  and  timeless  principles.”1 

This  exposition  of  any  concept  is  made  by  means  of  its  own 
dialectic.  That  is,  the  scientific  method  of  Hegel  is  the 
dialectical^ope.  The  dialectic  is  neither  mere  subjective 
nor  exTernal  criticism.  It  is  the  immanent  life  of  the  con- 
cept, criticising  itself  from  lower  to  higher  forms.  Starting 
from  a dogmatic  assertion  of  the  undeveloped  universal,  we 
see  the  dialectic  gradually  specifying,  particularizing  it  and 
successively  transmuting  each  dogmatic  particular  form  into 
a higher  form,  until  the  abstract  universal  becomes  fully 
particularized,  defined,  realized  — the  concrete  universal  — 
the  individual  or  the  concept  itself.  First  we  have  the  abstract 
thesis,  then  the  special  antithesis  and  finally  the  full  syn- 

1 The  Logic  of  Hegel,  p.  LXIII. 


EXPOSITION. 


29 


thesis,  all  of  which  is  the  self-realization  of  the  concept. 
The  growth  of  the  tree  from  the  seed  represents  this  inner 
dialectic  of  the  concept  of  a tree. 

The  process  is  not  deductive  or  a priori , proceeding  from 
a first  principle  which  remains  valid  and  normative  through- 
out. It  starts  rather  from  an  undeveloped  first  principle  and 
shows  how  inadequate  it  is,  presupposing  always  a more  con- 
crete principle  as  its  logical  condition.  This  concrete  prin- 
ciple is  at  once  the  logical  and  the  chronological  presupposi- 
tion. “In  the  beginning  God  (created).”  /Th  e dialectical 
procedure  is  a retrograde  movement  from  the  abstract  to  the 
concrete,  from  error  to  truth,  from  the  dependent  to  the 
infinite,  the  self-determining.  That  is,  the  procedure  is  always 
towards  the  first  principle  which  is  ultimately  seen  to  be  the 
true,  the  first  and  the  final  cause  of  the  whole  process.  Each 
higher  stage  is  reached,  not  by  a mechanical  evolution  from 
the  lower  one,  but  by  means  of  the  imperfections  and  impli- 
cations exhibited  by  the  lower  one.  All  nature,  all  life,  all 
thought,  except  Absolute  Thought  exhibits  this  immanent 
dialectic.^  So  much  has  already  been  written  about  this 
dialectic  method  of  Hegel  that  we  need  do  no  more  here 
than  give  one  illustration  from  the  text. 

The  first  form  of  the  ethical  concept  is  the  family — an 
inclusive  universal  or  unit.  But  soon  the  diversities  or 
distinctions  of  parents  and  children  appear.  A married 
couple  do  not  constitute  a family.  Children  break  in  upon 
this  simple  unity,  and  remain  always  children  to  their  par- 
ents. But  they  do  not  always  remain  children.  They  grow 
to  maturity,  leave  their  parents’  roof  and  establish  new 
families.  Family  property  is  divided,  the  family  broken  up, 
resolved  into  mutually  independent  individuals  with  various 
interests,  thus  merging  into  the  realm  of  civil  society.  Here 
the  particular  interests  of  individuals  jog  and  jostle  each 
other  through  civil  relations  till  the  ethical  realm  of  an 
organic  nation  is  reached  in  which  both  family  and  civil 
society  are  integrated,  preserved  and  fulfilled. 


3° 


EXPOSITION. 


Hegel’s  Philosophie  des  Rechts  may  be  called  the  doc- 
trine of  the  will.  The  will  is  the  man,  and  ethical  man  is 
will  realized  in  his  social  institutions.  To  reach  this  con- 
ception, however,  he  starts  with  the  most  abstract  conception 
of  will,  which  he  takes  as  ready  to  hand.  He  divides  the 
whole  work,  as  usual,  into  triadic  form  : 1 

I.  The  will  as  immediate,  undeveloped  potentiality,  which 
gives  the  sphere  of  abstract  or  formal  right. 

II.  The  will  self-reflected,  or  subjective  individuality,  op- 
posed to  objective  will.  This  gives  the  sphere  of  Moralität , 
or  of  conscience  contra  mundum. 

III.  The  will  as  the  unity  and  truth  of  these  two  abstract 
phases,  the  realm  of  formal  freedom  and  objective  right 
realized  in  the  world.  This  gives  the  realm  of  Sittlichkeit , 
or  the  ethical  world,  as  the  concrete  realization  of  man  as 
will.  This  includes  the  sphere  of  (a)  the  family,  ($)  civil 
society,  ( c ) the  State  in  the  most  concrete  sense  of  the  term, 
such  as  Dr.  Mulford  construes  “the  Nation.”  Under  this 
last  he  embraces  (a)  internal  polity,  (ß)  external  polity, 
(y)  international  polity,  merging  into  Universal  History,  as 
the  realization  of  man  in  the  most  cosmopolitan  sense  of 
the  term. 

We  give  a translation  of  the  larger  half  of  this  volume, 
and  here  offer  a brief  and  free  exposition  of  its  contents, 
referring  the  student  to  the  fuller  and  admirable  exposition 
given  by  Prof.  Geo.  S.  Morris  in  his  volume  on  “ Hegel’s 
Philosophy  of  the  State  and  of  History.”  We  recommend 
this  volume  as  a companion  book  to  this  translation.2 

1 § 33-  Grundlinien  der  Philosophie  des  Rechts.  Berlin,  1848.  All 
the  references  in  this  volume  are  to  this  later  edition  of  the  work. 

2 It  seems  fitting  that  we  should  pay  a brief  tribute  to  the  memory  of 
one  of  the  chief  philosophical  teachers  of  America,  the  late  Prof.  Geo. 
S.  Morris,  of  whom  the  English  quarterly,  Mind,  says  : “ He  had  gained 
a most  enviable  name  and  influence  among  philosophical  students 
and  writers  and  teachers.  There  is  every  reason  to  regret  deeply  his 
untimely  death  at  the  age  of  forty-eight.”  He  was  the  centre  of  a 
deep  religious  and  ethical  influence  extending  far  beyond  the  limits 


EXPOSITION. 


3 1 


The  subject-matter  of  Hegel’s  Philosophy  of  Right , or  of 
the  State,  is  the  human  will,  and  thus  it  is  essentially  a 
treatise  on  Ethics.  But  the  will,  as  Hegel  tells  us  (§  4), 
is  a particular  form  of  thought , — thought  translating  itself 
into  determinate  being,  thought  as  impulse  to  self-actual- 
ization. The  will,  too,  is  essentially  free.  At  first  it  is 
only  formally,  potentially  free.  It  is  only  through  a long 
series  of  mediations, — through  many  advances,  retreats, 
and  ultimate  conquests  of  itself  in  diverse  and  apparently 
foreign  forms,  — that  this,  its  essential  nature,  is  realized. 
Put  in  another  way,  the  subject-matter  is  the  human  will, 
as  respects  the  relation  of  particular  (private)  to  universal 
(public,  social)  will  of  man,  and  ultimately  of  this  universal 
human  will  in  relation  to  the  absolutely  universal  Divine 
will,  though  this  latter  belongs  to  the  subsequent  and 
concluding  portion  of  his  Encyclopedia. 

Cognition  completed  passes  into  practical  activity.  To 
think  or  know  an  object  is  to  create,  determine  and  possess 
an  object  ; but  intelligence,  which  determines  objects,  is 
will.  It  is  spirit  willing,  or  realizing  itself.  But  will  is 
taken  at  first  in  its  potential,  undeveloped  form,  — will,  as 
it  were,  in  the  state  of  nature  rather  than  in  state  of  civili- 
zation. It  is  rather  the  instinct  of  the  needs  and  greeds 
directed  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  individual  ; it  is  poten- 

of  the  University  of  Michigan.  I quote  the  following  from  a private 
letter  of  Prof.  Williston  S.  Hough,  of  the  University  of  Minnesota,  a 
former  student  of  Dr.  Morris,  and,  at  the  time  of  his  death,  his  assist- 
ant in  Philosophy  : — • 

“At  times  he  spoke  almost  as  one  inspired  with  the  melodious  rythm 
of  a poet  and  the  illumination  of  rare  philosophic  insight.  Yet  the 
chief  source  of  his  power  was  unquestionably  his  own  character.  He 
will  live  in  our  thought  as  a remarkable  exemplification  of  sweetness 
and  light.  His  loss  to  Philosophy  in  this  country  is  great  and  twofold  : 
ist,  as  a teacher  who  would  have  inspired  a genuine  interest  in  Phi- 
losophy in  every  student  who  came  under  him,  and  who  would  have 
educated  many  special  and  useful  scholars  in  this  field  ; and,  2d,  as  a 
writer  who  doubtless  had  his  greatest  work  still  before  him.” 

A brief  personal  acquaintance  more  than  confirmed  the  high  estimate 
formed  of  him  from  his  books. 


32 


EXPOSITION. 


tially  universal,  and  yet  has  no  content.  Its  aim  is  to  have 
only  its  fully  realized  self  as  content,  and  thus  be  free.  To 
reach  this,  however,  it  must  descend  into  the  realm  of  par- 
ticularities, — into  particular  will,  willing  something.  The 
movement  is  from  within  outward  ; but  the  movement,  even 
through  the  satisfaction  of  instinctive  needs  and  greeds,  is 
from  the  pure  self-reference  of  the  individual  as  universal. 
It  is  still  abstract,  formal,  internal.  Such  a single  will 
Hegel  denominates  a person  in  the  most  abstract,  formal 
sense  of  the  term.  It  is  the  first  stage  of  the  realization 
of  such  formal  personality  that  Hegel  treats  in  his  Part 
First. 

Abstract  Right. 

To  be  a person  is,  in  one  sense,  the  highest  within  human 
, capacity.  But,  as  used  here,  the  term  refers  to  a mere  indi-. 
vidual  will  maintaining  its  single  right  as  universal.  It  is 
the  rude,  uncultured  man,  stubbornly  sticking  for  his  will- 
| fulness,  while  the  true  person  has  an  eye  for  all  sides  and 
■relations  of  a complex  social  life.  Such  a will  demands  full 
j sway  for  itself  without  having  as  yet  conscientious  aims  or 
I convictions.  It  is  the  right  of  such  a person  to  cast  his  will 
over  every  external  thing,  making  it  his  own.  Confronted 
with  other  such  wills,  however,  the  formula  of  abstract  rights 
is  “be  a person  and  respect  others  as  persons.”  Hegel 
warns  us  against  putting  into  this  formula  all  that  it  would 
imply  in  an  ethical,  social  state.  Nothing  like  humaneness 
is  yet  present.  In  such  respect  for  others  the  person  only 
cares  for  himself.  Such  a “ person  ” is  nowhere  to  be  found. 
But  the  conception  necessarily  results  from,  and  is  the  first 
phase  of,  the  abstract  concept  of  will.  Such  a potential, 
universal  will,  however,  cannot  remain  utterly  abstract.  It 
finds  itself  confronted  by  a world  of  external  nature.  The 
alternative  comes  to  succumb  to  this,  or  to  rise  and  conquer 
it  and  so  to  be  free.  Alles  ist  Ich.  The  world  is  by  right 


EXPOSITION. 


33 


its  oyster.  It  actualizes  itself  only  by  making  the  world: 
to  be  really  its  oyster.  Abstract  will  asserts  itself  against 
its  environment,  lays  its  hand  upon  its  rights.  It  thus 
achieves  objective  existence  and  takes  the  first  step  towards 
actualization.  Things  are  soul-less,  will-less,  and  the  “ per- 
son ” has  the  right  to  subject  them  all  to  his  will,  to  put 
his  will  into  them,  and  thus  achieve  their  true  destiny. 

Here  appears  the  distinction  between  persons  and  things.  \ 
Things  are  rightfully  a part  or  property  of  the  person,  and 
become  such  through  his  act.  Will  is  thus  objectified  in 
property,  and  things  cease  to  be  mere  things,  and  become 
properties  of  the  will  through  seizure,  use  and  alienation. 
Property  is  thus  something  rational,  necessary  and  sacred. 
First,  the  body  of  the  person  is  thus  made  a possession 
or  property.  Both  body  and  soul  (life)  are  taken  possession 
of,  the  will  making  them  its  instruments. 

Hence,  too,  the  sacredness  of  “person”  or  of  one’s  body 
and  life.  The  will  being  thus  placed  in  them  secures  them 
from  slavery.  Slavery  can  come  only  where  one  will  not 
maintain  the  rights  of  person  and  property  to  the  death. 
It  depends  upon  each  person’s  will,  whether  he  will  be  a 
slave  or  not.  If  he  prefers  mere  continuance  of  existence 
to  independence,  he  becomes  the  slave  of  the  first  person 
who  can  make  him  his  property.  Slavery,  in  primitive 
times,  is  rather  a wrong  suffered  or  chosen  than  a wrong- 
done.  I put  my  will  in  a thing,  and  make  it  an  attribute 
or  property  of  myself.  This  involves  the  further  rights  of 
using,  consuming  and  alienating  possessions.  Will  changes 
things  into  properties.  Thus  the  relation  between  things 
becomes  the  relation  between  wills.  Persons  are  related  to 
each  other  through  their  properties.  They  can  hold  property 
only  as  they  also  respect  each  other’s  property. 

This  is  the  sphere  of  contract.  Property  here  comes  to 
be  held  through  the  will  of  others  as  well  as  through  one’s 
own  will.  Instead  of  one  abstract  will,  we  have  several 


34 


EXPOSITION. 


partially  realized  wills.  The  consent  of  other  wills  strength- 
ens my  property-rights.  In  .this mammon  will  of  contract  the 
abstract  will  of  the  mere  individual  or  “ person  ” attains  its 
first  stage  of  con.cr.ele_Limversality.  It  is  mediated  by  the 
i will  of  some-Qtkers. 

f But  such  a common  will  is  still  far  from  being  that  of  the 
■universal  will  of  society.  Its  elements  are  accidental  and 
particular,  and  can  give  no  guarantee  of  fulfilment.  Fraud. 
j violence  and  crime  are  inevitable.  In  “crime”  will  violates 
* itself:  that  is,  violates  itself  as  explicitly  common  will  and  as 
implicitly  universal  will.  The  formal  common  will  of  con- 
tract, considered  as  yet  abstracted  from  the  concrete  uni- 
versal will  of  ethical  society,  is  sure  to  be  violated.  Penalty 
follows  this  negation  as  the  next  step  forward  toward  true 
rights  and  the  objectification  of  the  universal  will.  Con- 
j tract  is  a step  forward,  crime  a step  backward,  and  penalty 
another  advance  in  the  relation  of  the  particular  will  to 
universal  will,  or  in  the  self-realization  of  will  as  the  science 
jof-ethics.  Penalty  is  the  negation  of  the  negation  (crime), 
j or  a reaffirmation  of  the  universal.  The  criminal  really 
commits  the  crime  against  himself  as  potentially  universal 
will. 

Punishment  springs  from  the  conception  of  true  will  and 
of  justice.  In  the  very  will  of  the  criminal  lies  the  universal 
which  is  to  complete  his  crime  in  the  penalty.  This  is  an 
act  of  justice  to  the  criminal  himself  as  well  as  to  the  com- 
mon will.  Punishment  really  honors  the  criminal — treats 
him  as  a person,  according  to  his  universal  element  rather 
than  as  a will-less  thing.  Theories  of  punishment  on  the 
ground  of  the  reformation  or  terrorization  of  the  criminal,  or 
of  the  protection  of  society,  do  not  duly  respect  the  manhood 
of  the  criminal.  Punishment  is  only  justice  to  the  criminal 
himself.  The  universal  in  him  cries  out,  Give  me  my  due, 
let  justice  be  done  by  having  penalty  complete  my  crime. 
Penalty  is  but  the  reaction  upon  the  criminal  of  his  own 


EXPOSITION. 


35 


negative  act.  It  is  equally  the  act  of  his  own  will;  it  is  his 
own  right.  But  in  this  as  yet  unorganized  nnrl  nnethiralj 
condition,  where  there  is  no  valid  universal  will  of  society 
to  mediate  between  crime  and  penalty,  we  find  punishment 
in  the  form  of  revenge,  mob-law  and  Judge  Lynch.  The  I 
common  will  of  the  abstract  contract  stage  becomes  again  a 
state  of  nature,  an  aggregate  of  at  best  only  semi-civilized 
Ishmaelites.  Here  retaliation  becomes  endless.  Family- 
feuds  to  the  death  in  the  sphere  of  organized  society  is  but 
a relapse  to  such  barbarism. 

True  punishment  is  impossible  without  the  mediation  of 
a true  universal  or  ethical  will  of  society.  This  demand 
brings  the  judge,  who  is  to  be  the  disinterested  repre- 
sentative of  the  true  will  of  man.  As  legal  judge  he  is 
to  have  no  private  views  or  feelings.  He  is  simply  to 
wrong  the  wronger  till  he  renders  right.  But  as  dispenser 
of  retributive  justice,  the  judge  appeals  beyond  the  letter  of 
the  law  to  an  inward  forum,  to  the  universal  will,  and  renders 
decisions  that  must  commend  themselves  to  the  conscience 
of  both  criminal  and  society. 

Property,  contract  and  punishment  are  alike  seen  to 
be  impossible  without  the  presence  and  mediation  of  a 
relatively  universalized  or  ethical  will.  Death  or  sjavery 
can  be  the  only  logical  issue  to  abstract  will  seeking  its 
abstract  rights.  With  no  other  elements  at  work,  such  a 
state  of  nature  could  never  give  rise  to  the  institution 
of  the  State.  Some  judge  more  just  and  universal  must 
be  found.  The  demand  is  for  a particular  will  which 
can  at  the  same  time  will  the  universal  or  the  “infinite 
subjectivity  of  freedom.”  Such  a will  must  reflect  upon 
itself,  retire  from  mere  objectivity  to  the  internal  forum. 
This  forum  is  that  of  Conscience.  Here  all  externalities 
are  reflected  and  transformed  into  ideal  principles  of  right 
and  wrong  as  regards  all  human  actions.  This  phase  Hegel 
calls  that  of 


36 


EXPOSITION. 


Morality  (. Moralität ) or  Abstract  Duty. 

In  this  sphere  we  have  to  do  with  man  as  a subjective 
being  rather  than  a merely  formal  “person.”  Here  person- 
ality becomes  inwardly  reflected,  exists  for  itself,  and  thus 
of  infinite  worth.  Here  “person”  becomes  more  personal 
— becomes  a “subject,”  who  is  absolutely  beyond  any  power, 
which  may  commit  violence  against  his  objectified  will 
and  person.  Here,  within,  the  will  is  absolutely  its  own 
lord  and  master.  The  stand-point  now  is  the  right  of  the 
subjective  will.  At  first,  however,  this  merely  subjective 
will  is  abstract,  formal  and  limited.  Hegel  shows  the  pro- 
cess from  the  most  abstract  form  of  this  subjectivity 
through  the  phases  of  (a)  purpose  and  responsibility , ( b ) 
intention  and  welfa>-e  to  (r)  the  good  and  conscience ,•  where 
abstract  right  is-translated  into  duty  and  virtue  or  good-will. 

First,  it  is  held  that  responsibility  is  only  commensurate 
with  knowledge.  Next,  the  quality  of  the  will  depends  upon 
the  “intention”  and  its  objective  results,  which  are  never 
restricted  to  particular  selfish  ends.  They  must  (thirdly)  be 
judged  according  to  their  universal  worth.  Hence  “the 
good”  as  the  reconciliation  of  the  particular  subjective  will 
with  the  universal  will,  or  with  the  rational. 

The  ideal  here,  in  this  third  phase,  is  that  of  duty  for 
duty’s  sake.  The  duty,  however,  is  yet  abstract.  No  con- 
tent can  be  furnished  by  itself.  The  universal  element  is 
merely  formal,  unspecified  as  to  content,  giving  no  answer 
as  to  what  one’s  duty  is  in  any  situation,  except  the  grand- 
iloquent one  of  “do  right  though  the  heavens  fall.”  An 
objective  system  of  principles  and  duties,  and  the  union  of 
the  subjective  knowledge  with  them,  is  plainly  impossible 
on  this  standpoint. 

Hegel,  here  and  elsewhere,  makes,  as  we  have  said, 
trenchant  criticism  of  Kant’s  doctrine  of  duty.  This 
formal  law  divorces  duty  from  all  interest  or  desire  — a 
psychological  impossibility.  It  takes  no  cognizance  of 


EXPOSITION. 


37 


the  concrete  situation  and  can  suggest  no  present  duty. 
It  cannot  discriminate  between  particular  actions  sö  as 
to  call  one  of  them  a duty.  Finally,  it  must  equally  uni- 
versalize all  particular  actions,  and  thus  bring  about  con- 
fusion and  collisions.  Only  in  view  of  the  institution 
of  property  in  the  State  can  it  say,  “Thou  shalt  not 
steal.”  In  the  abstract  form  of  Kant  it  must  equally  say, 
“Thou  shalt  steal.”  That  is,  if  we  abstract  all  social  rela- 
tions, which  ex  hypothesi  Kant  does,  we  can  universalize  any 
particular  rule  without  contradiction.  In  the  realm  of  the 
concrete  morality  of  social  life,  however,  we  cannot  do  this. 

What  will  be  the  result  of  such  an  abstract  subjective  con- 
ception of  duty  ? Plainly  the  individual  must  become  the 
law-giver  and  the  judge  of  what  is  absolute  good.  He  must 
trust  to  his  own  private  judgment  without  the  mediation  of 
existing  codes  of  society.  He  must  give  a purely  subjective 
individual  determination  of  the  content  of  the  lofty  but 
formal  universal.  The  individual  becomes  the  measure  of 
the  moral  quality  of  objective  actions.  There  is  no  public 
source  and  standard  for  the  guidance  of  private  judgment. 

Hegel  does  not  neglect  the  important  function  of  the  duty 
of  private  judgment,  but  is  here  only  showing  its  capricious- 
ness when  taken  out  of  the  concrete  relations  of  an  ethical 
world.  Antinomianism  is  a logical  and  historical  outcome 
of  such  abstract  private  judgment,  which  runs  riot  and  plays 
the  tyrant  for  lack  of  an  objective  concrete  social  system  of 
duties.  It  is  the  making  of  self  a statesman  to  represent  a 
concrete  state  that  ex  hypothesi  does  not  yet  exist.  The 
eccentric  is  made  the  normal,  the  crooked  the  straight. 
This  elevation  of  the  capricious  individual  subjective  judg- 
ment to  be  the  measure  and  definition  of  the  universal  finally 
results  in  the  evil.  “ The  highest  summit  of  subjectivity 
asserting  itself  as  the  absolute  is  the  bad  ” (das  Bösel) 
It  is  at  this  abstract  standpoint  of  the  natural  (unethicized) 
will  that  he  finds  the  origin  of  moral  evil. 


38 


EXPOSITION. 


While  thus  criticising  this  standpoint,  Hegel  does  not 
fail  to  render  homage  to  Kant  for  having  brought  out 
the  significance  of  duty.  But  he  shows  how  this  standing 
upon  one’s  own  subjective  insight  and  will  eventuates 
in  the  morally  evil  — in  that  which,  being  private  and 
particular,  asserts  itself  as  the  universal  — the  sin  of  the 
creature  Satan  usurping  the  throne  of  God.  Here  enters 
antinomianism  in  all  its  forms.  One’s  own  likings  are 
liable  to  become  the  norm  of  conduct.  A clergyman 
urging  a man  to  do  a certain  duty  was  met  with  the  reply, 
“My  conscience  forbids  me  to  do  it.”  In  reply  as  to 
how  his  conscience  told  him  this  he  said,  that  he  felt  some- 
thing thumping  in  his  breast  saying  “/  won't , I won't." 
Such  a merely  subjective  norm  dissolves  all  fixed  and  de- 
finite laws  of  order  and  right. 

Hegel  says  that  he  is  not  here  treating  of  the  religious 
conscience,  and  also  allows  that  in  certain  rotten  stages 
of  society,  as  in  the  times  of  Socrates  and  the  Stoics,  this 
concept  of  private  judgment  has  its  place  and  worth  in  the 
work  of  reformation.  But  the  subjective  conscience  which 
dissolves  all  external  forms  of  duty  and  retires  within  to 
its  own  little  Sinai  is  likely  to  make  it  a Mount  Moriah, 
for  the  sacrifice  of  the  tenderest  of  human  ties. 

If  subjective  conviction,  unenlightened  by  traditional  and 
current  codes  and  institutions,  insists  upon  its  private  views 
as  absolute,  we  have  the  destruction  of  all  morality.  The 
highest  summit  of  evil  is  extreme  subjectivity  asserting  itself 
as  the  absolute,  the  good  — God,  changing  good  into  evil 
and  calling  it  good.  Here  delusion  has  equal  right  with 
sound  sense,  and  reason  no  longer  has  any  right. 

Hence  we  see  that  conscience  at  this  stage  cannot  be  true 
or  good  conscience.  This  abstraction  in  turn  demands  as 
its  correlate  that  which  it  was  called  out  to  correct,  — i.  <?., 
abstract  personal  right.  In  fact,  these  two  abstractions  must 
be  integrated  into  the  concrete  ethical  substance  from  which 


EXPOSITION. 


39 


they  have  really  been  abstracted.  We  are  only  advancing, 
prodigal-like,  to  the  real  home  of  morality,  from  which  we 
have  violently  torn  ourselves  away.  We  thus  reach  the 
ethical  ( sittliche ) world. 

III.  In  this  world  of  ethical  ( sittliche ) relations  of  the 
family,  civil  society,  the  state,  and  humanity,  the  idea  of 
freedom  is  realized  as  a “ living  good  that  is  powerful  enough 
to  actualize  itself”  (§  142).  Here  abstract  rights  become 
ethical  and  authorized  rights,  and  abstract  duty  becomes 
specific  and  full  of  content.  Rrivaie—j^idgmeftt — becomes 

relatively  universalized,  and  the  lofty,  cold,  and  colorless 
imperative  becomes  relatively  incarnated  in  the  hearts  of  a 
brotherhood  of  men. 

In  his  Phänomenologie  des  Geistes  Hegel  traces  with  a larger 
and  freer  hand  the  dialectic  of  previous  stages,  under  the 
rubrics  of  “self-consciousness”  and  “reason,”  and  uses 
that  of  “ spirit  ” to  designate  what  he,  in  the  Philosophie  des 
Geistes,  calls  realized  morality  ( Sittlichkeit ).  He  there  uses 

the  term  “spirit”  as  equivalent  to  the  corporate,  social 
“self-consciousness”  and  “reason,”  which  has  had  the 
power  to  create  the  ethical  world,  into  various  grades  of 
which  each  individual  is  born,  and  through  which  he  takes 
form  and  content  in  the  work  of  self-realization,  or  of 
becoming  a “person”  in  the  truer  sense  of  the  term. 
The  laws  of  this  world  are  his  own  laws.  He  must 
fulfil  them  to  realize  himself.  He  finds  them  existing 
for  him,  as  the  reason  and  law  of  his  own  specific  nature  as 
man. 

In  fact,  man  is  by  nature  a social  animal.  He  is  only 
real  __  as  he  is  social.  To  be  himself  he  must  he  more 
than  his  own  abstract  self ; to  live  his  own  life  he  must  livej 
the  life  of  the  body  corporate.  On  one  hand,  these  laws  of 
soTTety~appear  with  even  more  authority  than  the  laws  of 
nature.  On  the  other  hand,  they  are  not  foreign  to  him, 
but  yield  to  him  the  testimony  of  the  spirit  that  they  are 


40 


EXPOSITION. 


his  own}  In  accepting  them  he  is  not  doing  despite 
to  his  own  individuality,  but  is  accepting  the  essential 
conditions  of  its  preservation  and  development.  The 
individuality  of  a man  who,  from  infancy,  should  sever  all 
relations  to  his  fellow-men  and  grow  up  “naturally”  would 
be  an  idiot,  — even  lower  than  the  animals  with  which  he 
might  consort. 

Society  is  really  creative  of  individuality.  The  en- 
lightenment and  regulation  of  the  subjective  conscience 
by  the  laws  and  duties  of  one’s  station  clothes  its 
nakedness  with  the  garments  of  truth  and  beauty.  The 
largest  altruism  demanded  by  them  is,  essentially,  the 
largest  possible  egoism.  Through  it  the  individual  elevates 
himself  from  capricious  lawlessness  into  substantial  freedom 
and  personality.  Living  for  others  is  the  highest  form  of 
1 living  for  self. 

Hegel  also  uses  the  term  substance  to  characterize  the 
ethical  tissue  into  which  man  is  born.  The  moral  dis- 
position of  the  individual  consists  in  his  recognition  of  this 
substance  as  his  own} 

Virtue  he  defines  as  ethical  personality  ( sittliche  Persön- 
li dike  it),  or  the  life  of  the  individual  permeated  and  trans- 
formed by  the  ethical  substance.  Here  duties  and  rights 
first  exist,  and  that  only  through  reciprocal  relation.  Here 
the  natural  man  is  gradually  converted  into  the  ethical  man. 
This  ethical  substance  is  an  immanent  and  determining 
principle  of  action  which  permeates  and  transforms  the 
natural  man,  ■ — acts  as  a moulding  power  through  the 
family,  and  the  social,  civil,  religious,  educational,  and 
political  organizations.  These  various  institutions  of  society 
are  the  realized  objective  form  of  the  ethical  substance,  in 
the  fruition  of  its  own  being.8 

1 Philosophie  des  Rechts,  §§  146,  147. 

2 Philosophie  des  Geistes,  4}  5 1 2 5- 

8 Professor  F.  H.  Bradley  has,  I believe,  given  a thoroughly  unique 
exposition  of  Hegel’s  dialectic  through  these  phases  of  morality,  in  his 


EXPOSITION. 


4i 


Hegel  notes  three  phases  of  this  ethical  world. — 

( 1 ) The, family  as  the  primitive  form-of -this  ethical  spirit. 

(2)  Civil  society,  which  results  from  the  separation  of  the 
members  of  familiesTmcTtheir  being  reunited  again  in  more 
external  form  for  the  security  of  person  and  property,  in  a 
realm  of  merely  formal  universality. 

(3)  The  State,  or  the  invisible  spirit  of  the  nation,  developed 
to  an  organic, reality  in  the  hearts  and  customs  and  genius 
of -its  people. 

1.  The  individual  first  comes  to  tiitnself  in  the  family, 
whose  active  prfricijHeHsTove,  which  transcends  and  includes 
its  members  in  its  unity.  The  family  is  the  first  or  instinc- 
tive realization  of  the  ethical  spirit.  It  exists  not  by  con- 
tract but  by  the  grace  o£  God.  The  union  of  love  and  trust 
in  this  circle  forms  its  organizing  and  controlling  principle, 
so  that  in  it  the  individual  members  find  a measurable  fulfil- 
ment of  their  own  capacities.  The  family,  too,  is  a process 
involving,  — 

(a)  Marriage  ; 

(b)  Family  property ; 

(c)  The  education  of  children  to  maturity,  and  the  separa- 
tion of  its  members. 

(a)  Marriage  is  a transformed  physical  union  of  male  and 
female.  The  animal  phase  is  transfigured  by  love  into  a 
spiritual  one.  Marriage  implies  the  free  consent  of  the  two 
persons  to  constitute  henceforth  one  person,  to  submit  to 
limitations  in  order  to  gain  fuller  self-realization.  The  hus- 
band is  more  of  a man  than  the  bachelor.  Hence  it  is  an 
ethical  duty  of  mankind  to  enter  into  and  maintain  the  mar- 
riage relation.  The  marriage  bond  is  essentially  a spiritual 
relation,  in  which  individuals  subjugate  their  private  aims 

Ethical  Studies , which,  however,  is  unfortunately  of  avail  only  to  the 
few  who  happen  to  possess  a copy  of  this  “out  of  print”  book.  Many 
would  gladly  buy,  borrow,  or  even  steal  this  desirable  volume.  I never 
succeeded  in  more  than  stealing  a hasty  reading  of  it.  It  ought  to  be 
reprinted. 


42 


EXPOSITION. 


and  wishes  to  the  law  of,  at  least,  a dual  life,  love,  and  good. 
Hence  marriage,  too,  is  more  than  a contract.  For  contract 
implies  that  the  parties  still  retain  their  external  independ- 
ence. Hegel  says  that  Kant’s  subsumption  of  marriage 
under  contract  “is  scandalous.”  Marriage  is  rather  the 
contract  of  a man  and  woman  to  pass,  as  husband  and  wife, 
out  of  and  above  the  sphere  of  contract.  In  marriage  the 
twain  are  to  become  one  flesh,  one  heart,  one  mind,  one 
person.  Hence  the  marriage  ceremony  should  be  one  of 
social  and  religious  celebration.  The  cold  formalism  of 
mere  civil  contract  before  a justice  of  the  peace  is  utterly 
inadequate  to  manifest  and  declare  such  a spiritual  relation. 
Marriage  is  of  both  ethical  and  intellectual  influence  upon 
the  parties.  They  have  larger  views  of  life  and  a common 
good  as  their  aim.  Marriage,  too,  is  essentially  monogamic. 
This  is  one  of  the  absolute  principles  on  which  the  ethical 
character  of  a social  state  rests.  Marriage  between  blood- 
relations  is  also  unethical.  The  family,  as  a single  person- 
ality, has  its  external  reality  in  its  family  property. 

(/;)  It  is  of  the  essence  of. Tamily.  property  that  it  b e com- 
mon property.  This  gives  property  an  ethical  value  which 
we  could  not  find  for  it  under  the  category  of  “ abstract 
right.”  The  thought  of  a common  good  animates  all  in 
the  acquisition  and  maintenance  of  family  possessions,  thus 
relatively  overcoming  the  “miserable  aims  that  end  with  self.” 

(r)  The  education  of  children  to  maturity. 

Children  complete  the  family__circle.  In  and  through 
them  the  unity  of  married  love  comes  to  external  manifesta- 
tion. In  loving  the  offspring  of  their  love,  the  parents  love 
each  other  anew.  The  rights  and  duties  of  parents  and 
children  spring  out  of  the  common  good  of  the  family.  Con- 
fidence and  obedience  are  educed  in  the  children,  that  they 
may  grow  up  in  love  in  the  family  ethos.  The  slave-like 
relation  of  children  to  parents  among  the  Romans  was  of 
the  most  disastrous  influence.  The  modern  world  recognizes 


EXPOSITION. 


43 


that  children  are,  potentially,  free  spiritual  beings,  whom  thq1 
family  is  to  train  for  citizenship  in  a larger  ethical  sphere.- 
Families  multiply,  parents  die,  and  children  grow  up,  and 
we  have  a multitude  of  separate  persons  again,  though  of 
more  concrete  and  ethical  content  than  under  the  category 
of  “abstract  right.”  Here  the  elements  of  individualism 
and  independence  appear  again,  in  higher  form,  with  differ- 
ing and  conflicting  interests.  The  first  phase  of  a return  to 
a higher  ethical  unity  is  in  the  form  of 

2.  Civil  society,  or  the  realm  of  armed  peace  among  now 
semi-tutored  Ishmaelites,  bound  together,  through  their 
wants,  by  contract,  for  defence  against  each  other.  Hegel 
declines  to  name  this  other  than  “ the  state  on  its  external 
side,”  or  government.  In  this  realm  of  “ particularity,”  or, 
as  he  elsewhere  calls  it,  “ system  of  atomism  of  self-interest,”  1 
each  private  atomistic  person  makes  himself  an  end  and 
uses  everything  else  as  a means.  Law,  the  abstract  univer- 
sal element,  is  here  only  a mechanical  means  to  prevent 
internecine  warfare.  It  is  a task-master  to  be  eluded  by 
every  means,  and  yet  serves  the  pedagogic  purpose  of  dis- 
ciplining caprice  into  formal  unity.  Absolute  individualism 
would  be  civil  anarchy.  The  individual  must  contract  to 
limit  himself  by  some  outward  form  of  universality,  in  order 
to  exist.  Through  this  he  learns  that  his  own  good  can 
only  come  through  the  good  of  all,  and  comes  to  recognize 
that  the  concrete  state  is  the  good  and  true  for  him  on 
earth,  without  the  immanent  life  of  which  in  civil  society 
government  could  not  exist.  But  to  reach_  this  recognition 
of  a common  corporate  good  as  each  one’s  own  good,  civil 
society  passes  through  three  phases. 

fa)  The  sj^stem  of  wants,  including  labor,  wealth,  and 
classes  of  society. 

' The  administration  of  justice,  including  legal  rights, 
public  laws,  and  courts  of  justice. 


1 Philosophie  des  Geistes,  § 523. 


44 


EXPOSITION. 


*(/)-  The  sphere  ofpolicc  regulation,  in  its  broadest  sense, 
and  that  of  incorporated  companies  under  legal  sanction. 

Hegel  gives  an  elaborate  treatment  of  these  phases,  con- 
tinuously demonstrating  that  each  one  presupposes  and 
actually  rests  upon  the  larger  ethical  organization  of  man 
in  the  Nation,  or  the  spiritual  State.  Through  the  mainte- 
nance of  the  sanctity  of  marriage,  and  of  honor  in  corpora- 
tions, civil  society  passes  over  into  the  Nation,  in  which 
all  the  previous  abstract  phases  are  taken  up  as  organic 
elements. 

3.  The  Nation  or  the  invisible  State. 

Hegel’s  lofty  and  profound  conception  of  the  State,  as 
the  highest  realization  of  the  will  in  its  substantial  freedom, 
is,  happily,  too  well  known  to  need  lengthy  exposition.  Dr. 
Mulford  thoroughly  assimilated,  appreciated,  and  American- 
ized this  conception  of  “The  Nation”  as  “a  moral  organ- 
ism” and  “a  moral  personality,”  rooted  in  human  nature, 
which  is  rooted  in  the  Divine  nature,  and  of  Divine  origin 
and  sanction;  the  sphere  for  the  “institution  ” and  the  “real- 
ization of  rights  and  of  freedom”;  “sovereign”  and  repre- 
sentative of  the  individual,  the  family,  society,  civil  rights, 
and  the  commonwealth;  immanent  in  and  vitalizing  all  these 
spheres;  “a  temple  whose  building  is  of  living  stones,”  a 
body,  in  and  through  which  alone  individuals  can  get  the 
form  and  content  of  personality;  “the  work  of  God  in  his- 
tory, realizing  the  moral  order  of  the  world”;  “fulfilling 
humanity  in  God  ” ; “ the  beginning  and  the  goal  of  history  ” ; 
“having  an  immortal  life,”  and  “its  consummation  in  the 
perfected  kingdom  of  the  Christ.” 

With  Hegel,  the  State  is  the  ethical  concept,  actualized  in 
progressively  more  adequate  form,  the  moral  life  of  humanity 
throbbing  through  and  integrating  all  the  activity  of  its 
individuals. 

“The  State  is  the  self-conscious  ethical  ( sittliche ) sub- 
stance, the  union  of  the  principle  of  the  family  and  of  civil 


EXPOSITION. 


45 


society.  In  the  family  this  principle  exists  as  the  feeling 
of  love.  This  immediate , but  essential  principle,  however, 
receives  the  form  of  self-conscious  universality  through  the 
second  principle,  which  contains  the  elements  of  knowledge 
and  will,  or  thinking  will.  Thus  the  State  appears,  having  ! 
for  its  content  and  absolute  aim  intelligent  subjectivity, 
developed  into  rationality.”  1 The  State  is  the  actuality  of 
the  substantial  will,  the  vital  union  of  the  particular  interest 
of  its  members  with  the  relatively  universal  aims  of  man 
as  man. 

Neither  the  family  nor  civil  society  is  commensurate  with\ 
such  realization  of  individuals,  though  in  both  of  these 
spheres  a beginning  is  made  from  single  to  universal  aims. 
This  larger — the  largest  earthly — sphere  takes  up  and  ful- 
fils all  narrower  ones.  The  State  is  universal  or  public^ 
reason,  existing  unreflectingly  in  the  genius  or  spirit  of  its 
people,  and  objectively  in  its  customs  and  institutions. 

Membership  in  this  moral  organism  is  the  highest  duty. 

It  is  the  ethical  substance  in  which  alone  one  can  be  him- 
self. All  that  he  says  about  the  State  can  be  questioned 
only  by  confounding  it,  as  many  modern  theorists  do,  with 
“civil  society”  as  the  mechanical  expedient  for  the  security 
of  private  rights  and  liberty.  Herbert  Spencer’s  conception 
is,  essentially,  only  a more  developed  form  of  that  of  The 
Leviathan  of  Hobbes.  Rousseau’s  volonte  generale  also 
lacked  corporate  sovereignty,  because  it  represented  only 
an  abstraction  and  contract  of  particular  wills,  as  a means. 

The  corporate  will,  however,  is  the  primal  essential 
element  in  Hegel’s  conception  of  the  State.  It  is  the  true 
end  of  man  on  earth,  an  end  that  realizes  itself  in  and 
through  its  self-conscious  members.  The  concept  of  the 
State  is  itself  a process,  having  (a)  immediate  actuality  in 
the  particular  state,  — an  independent  organism,  with  its 
own  constitution  or  internal  polity  ( Staatsrecht ) ; passing 


1 Philosophie  des  Geistes , § 535. 


46 


EXPOSITION. 


{b')  into  the  relation  of  one  State  to  other  States,  — external 
polity  ; and  finally  (e)  appearing  as  the  universal  or  generic 
concept,  as  lord  over  particular  States.  It  is  thus  the  fullest 
earthly  manifestation  of  man  as  spirit,  actualizing  itself  in 
the  process  of  universal  history. 

(a)  Internal  polity. 

The  State,  as  actualized  concrete  freedom,  not  only  per- 
mits, but  creates  and  contains,  as  vital  members,  individual 
personalities.  “ The  prodigious  strength  and  depth  of 
modern  States  springs  from  their  giving  the  principle  of 
subjectivity,  or  private  personality,  the  most  extreme  and 
independent  development,  while  at  the  same  time  reducing 
this  element  into  substantial  unity  with,  and  making  it  a 
means  for,  the  realization  of  their  own  generic  end.” 

The  principle  of  the  worth  of  the  individual,  he  says, 
“ marks  the  turning-point  in  the  distinction  of  modern  and 
ancient  times.  Christianity  first  emphasized  this  principle 
and  made  it  the  vital  principle  of  a new  form  of  the  world.” 
Hence  he  must  never  be  understood  as  slighting  this  element 
in  his  larger  doctrine  of  the  State,  though  this  appears  to 
approach  very  nearly  the  ancient  doctrine,  which  swamped 
the  individual  in  the  State.  It  is  only-  the  inane  perversion 
of  this  Christian  principle  of  subjectivity  that  he  criticises. 

/ Though  the  State  may  appear  as  an  external  power,  it  is 
/really  but  the  rational  expression  of  the  corporate  will  of 
individuals.  In  the  State,  rights  and  duties  are  in  reciprocal 
relation.  “This  union  of  duty  and  right  is  one  of  the  most 
important  notes  of  the  State  and  the  inner  ground  of  its 
strength.  The  individual  in  accomplishing  his  duty  finds 
self-satisfaction.  From  his  relation  to  the  State  there  springs 
a right,  so  that  the  public  affair  becomes  his  own  affair.” 
Through  the  disposition  and  eöos  of  its  people,  mere  govern- 
ment is  changed  to  ethical  and  substantial  self-government, 
and  is  thus  the  actualization  of  concrete  freedom.  The 
universal  element  in  the  laws  and  institution  of  the  State 


EXPOSITION. 


47 


are  simply  the  reflexive  expression  of  the  ethical  spirit  of 
its  people.  “ They  are  the  reason  of  the  Nation,  developed 
and  actualized  in  particular  forms,  and  thus  the  steadfast 
basis  of  the  State  and  of  the  genial  confidence  of  its  citizens.” 

“ The  guarantee  of  a constitution  — i.  e.  the  necessity  that 
the  laws  be  reasonable  and  their  realization  secured  — lies 
in  the  spirit  of  the  people  as  a whole,- — that  is,  in  their 
definite  self-consciousness  of  its  reason  (religion  being  this 
consciousness  in  its  absolute  substantiality),  and  also  in  the 
real  organization,  conformable  to  it  as  a development  of  that 
principle.  The  constitution  presupposes  this  consciousness 
of  the  national  spirit,  as  this  spirit  presupposes  the  constitu- 
tion. For  the  actual  spirit  has  the  definite  consciousness  of 
its  principles  only  so  far  as  they  are  present  to  it  as  exist- 
ing ” ( Philosophie  des  Geistes,  § 540).  The  people  make  their 
own  constitution. 

But  religion  forms  a most  important  factor  in  the  spirit  of 
a people.  Hegel  says  frankly  that  religion  is  the  foundation 
of  the  State,  which  “ is  the  Divine  will  unfolding  itself  in  the 
actual  organization  of  a people.”  Religion  has  the  absolute 
truth  for  its  content,  creating  the  most  powerful  and  lofty 
temper  of  a people,  and  thus  affording  the  highest  approba- 
tion and  sovereignty  to  the  laws  of  the  State.  But  when 
religion  degenerates  into  fanaticism,  and  tries  to  make  the 
State  a church-state,  it  needs  to  be  curbed.  Thus  church 
organizations,  like  other  societies,  are  subordinate  to  the 
State.  Still,  the  religious  sentiment  of  a people  is  so  con- 
trolling, that  it  is  only  “a  folly  of  modern  times  to  alter  a 
system  of  corrupt  morality  and  laws  without  a change  in 
religion,  to  attempt  a political  revolution  without  a religious 
reformation." 

The  religious  faith  should  be  left  free,  because  the 
sphere  of  religion  is  higher  than  that  of  politics.  Its 
peculiar  task  is  the  fostering  of  lofty  ideals  and  the 
cultivation  of  the  conscience.  But  when  religion  takes  the 


48 


EXPOSITION. 


form  of  separate  organizations  within  the  State,  dissenting 
from  its  social  and  ethical  regulations,  it  must  be  subordi- 
nated to  the  ethical  supervision  of  the  State.  These  cannot 
be  permitted  to  foster  opinions  absolutely  alien,  or  opposed 
to,  the  constitution,  as  expressing  the  corporate  genius  of  its 
people,  or  to  treat  the  State  as  a soulless,  Godless  mechanism, 
instead  of  an  ethical  expression  of  the  freedom  of  God’s 
children. 

Modern  States  base  their  constitutions  on  the  principle 
of  freedom.  Want  of  freedom  in  religion,  or  an  unethical 
conception  of  God,  will  be  found  hostile  to  such  constitu- 
tions. Hence  Hegel  gave  the  political  preference  to 
Protestantism,  because  it  inculcates  that  freedom  of  thought 
and  of  conscience  which  harmonizes  with  the  principle  of 
free  political  life. 

Hegel  was  accused  of  deifying  the  State,  because  he  saw 
in  it  more  than  a police  mechanism,  a military  bureaucracy, 
tyrannizing  its  citizens.  He  saw  in  it  the  life  of  the  spirit 
of  its  people,  realizing  its  destiny  with  vital  freedom.  He 
did  not  make  it  absolute,  as  he  recognized  no  finality  in  any 
secular  institutions,  and  proclaimed  the  spheres  of  art, 
religion,  and  science  (in  its  broadest  sense)  as  higher  than 
that  of  politics,  for  the  free  cultivation  of  which  the  State 
should  be  most  solicitous. 

He  held  that  the  possession  of  a religious  disposition 
by  its  people  was  most  essential  to  the  welfare  of  a State, 
springing  from  and  exalting  them,  as  it  does,  into  direct 
relation  with  God.  The  real  substance  of  morality  and 
the  State  is  religion.  They  rest  upon  the  religious  dis- 
position of  its  people.  It  is  fatal  to  both  religion  and 
the  State  to  foster  two  kinds  of  conscience.  The  State 
must  see  to  it  that  religion  is  fostered.  The  Divine 
Spirit  must  immanently  permeate  the  whole  sphere  of 
the  secular,  “Principles  of  lawful  freedom  can  only  be 
abstract  and  superficial,  and  the  State  institutions  derived 


EXPOSITION. 


49 


from  them  must  of  themselves  be  untenable  if  the  wisdom 
which  gave  birth  to  those  principles  understands  religion  so 
poorly  as  not  to  recognize  that  they  have  their  final  and 
highest  guarantee  in  the  religious  consciousness.” 

Hegel  thus  would  have  the  customary,  the  current  habits, 
laws  and  institutions  of  a State, vitalized  and  conserved  by 
the  moral  and  religious  disposition  of  its  people.  To  recur 
again  1 to  the  significance  of  his  term  ethical  ( sittlich ),  we 
may  reaffirm  that  it  means  far  more  than  the  mere  observ- 
ance of  conventional  customs.  It  is  rather  the  vital  union 
of  £0os  and  7 rd#os.  The  pathos,  as  active  emotion,  has 
externalized  itself  in  customs  and  institutions,  but  does  not 
therefore  cease  to  act.  It  continues  to  be  the  active  element 
in  the  observance  of  its  own  customs.  This  ethical  world 
includes  the  national  manners,  customs,  laws,  and  institu- 
tions in  which  the  freedom  and  rationality  of  the  communal 
spirit  has  embodied  itself.  Family,  state,  school,  church, 
social,  scientific,  and  literary  circles  are  all  manifestations 
of  this  free  spirit  of  man  in  its  struggle  for  self-realization. 
They  are  the  forms  of  substantial  freedom  which  exist,  in 
some  degree,  in  the  lowest  form  of  society.  They  are  con- 
ventionally recognized  forms  of  “the  good,”  which  alone 
enable  one  to  specify  the  categorical  imperative.  They  are 
more  : they  are  the  self-specifications  of  the  communal 
spirit  seeking  to  be  good,  — the  outcome  of  the  Moralität 
of  the  social  soul, — the  good  or  moral  manners  springing 
from  its  relative  rationality  and  freedom.  Conscience  has 
had  some  might,  and  has,  to  some  extent,  formed  and  ruled 
the  ethical  world.  It  has  had  might  enough  to  form  deca- 
logues in  all  the  circles  of  social  activity.  The  community 
has  an  insight  or  conviction,  and  organizes  it  into  a law  or 
an  institution,  and  thus  makes  its  free  spirit  substantial. 
The  ethical  will  of  any  people  is  thus  relatively  self-realized. 
It  thus  enacts  itself  and  specifies  what  its  “common  good” 


1 Cf  pp.  n-13. 


5° 


EXPOSITION. 


consists  in.  The  individual,  asking  what  good  he  must  do, 
finds  here  his  first  definite  answer.  He  is  not  put  to  the 
impossible  task  of  framing  a morality  for  himself,  but  is  born 
into  the  obligation  of  entering  into,  sustaining,  and  further- 
ing the  moral  world  into  which  he  is  born  as  a member.  His 
private  judgment  must  thus  be  based  upon  a public -source 
and  standard.  Hence  Hegel  says,  “The  striving  for  a mo- 
rality of  one’s  own  is  futile,  and  by  its  very  nature  impossible 
of  attainment  ; in  regard  to  morality,  the  saying  of  the  wisest 
man  of  antiquity  is  the  only  true  one,  ■ — to  be  moral  is  to  live 
in  accordance  with  the  moral  traditions  of  one’s  country.”  1 
The  Indian  of  any  tribe  is  a more  moral  man  for  being  a 
loyal  tribal  man  than  he  would  be  if  he  ignored  all  tribal 
and  domestic  relations.  No  absolutely  bad  ( sittenlos ) man 
can  exist.  Such  isolation  would  be  instantaneous  suicide. 
Homer  thus  ridiculed  the  idea  of  such  a being  or  thing  : 

“No  tribe,  nor  state,  nor  home  hath  he.” 

Even  the  babe  in  his  cradle  and  Simon  on  his  pillar  and 
Crusoe  on  his  island  have  their  substantial  worth  through 
past  or  present  relation  to  a social  tissue.  No  one,  any 
more  than  Hamlet,  creates  his  own  duties.  Every  one  is 
born  into  an  objective,  ethical  world.  His  only  task  is  to 
realize  himself  by  fulfilling  these  objective  duties  of  his 
station.  But  does  this  not  land  us  in  a Chinese  state  of 
immobile  conservatism?  Does  this  not  imply  that  the  cus- 
tomary is  the  ultimate,  that  the  existing  status  of  our  ethical 
circle  is  identical  with  the  ideal,  or  the  “is”  with  the 
“ought  to  be”?  Certainly  this  is  not  the  doctrine  of 
Hegel  as  to  the  progressive  consciousness  and  realization 
of  freedom.  Loyalty  to  conventional  morality  is  only  a 
prerequisite  to  reflective  conscientiousness,  which  asks  and 
strives  after  better  forms  of  social  self-realization.  Hegel 
recognizes  no  finality  in  temporal  institutions.  He  sets  or 


1 Hegel’s  Werke , vol.  i.  p.  ^oo. 


EXPOSITION. 


Si 

sees  the  negative  dialectic  always  and  everywhere  at  work 
criticising,  overturning,  and  reforming  the  ethical  world  in 
its  progress  into  the  absolute  spirit,  — the  realm  of  art, 
religion,  and  philosophy,  in  which  alone  complete  self-reali- 
zation is  possible  to  the  human  spirit.  Here  Hegel’s  doc- 
trine of  the  development  of  “the  moral  Ideal”  is  in  place. 
This  has  been  thoroughly  worked  out  for  the  individual  in 
Green’s  Prolegoinena  to  Ethics , and  for  the  race  in  Hegel’s 
Philosophy  of  History.  For  the  individual,  in  the  lowest 
stage  of  his  social  (and  actual)  life,  there  is  a common  good 
already  realized,  into  whose  inheritance  he  enters.  Loyalty 
to  this  fosters  conscientiousness  which  leads  to  reform. 
Progress,  while  an  advance  upon  the  customary  morality, 
is  not  a product  of  mere  private  conscience,  but  is  the  out- 
growth of  the  ideal  embodied  in  the  conventional  forms, 
which  come  to  be  more  and  more  fulfilled  in  higher  forms 
and  richer  content. 

Finality  means  sterility  in  morals  as  well  as  in  all  other 
spheres.  Hegel  gives  ample  recognition  of  this  element 
of  conscientiousness,  or  the  principle  of  subjective  free- 
dom, announced  first  by  Socrates  and  given  its  infinite 
worth  by  Christ,  so  as  to  be  really  creative  of  the  modern 
ethical  world  in  distinction  from  that  of  the  ancient,  which 
mechanically  subjugated  the  individual  to  the  tyranny  of 
his  social  environment.  His  ethical  world  absorbs  and 
demands  the  constant  activity  of  this  element  of  consci- 
entiousness, as  the  necessary  dynamic  in  the  progress  of 
social  man  into  the  consciousness  and  realization  of  free- 
dom. In  the  course  of  its  activity  it  passes  through  many 
phases,  rational  and  irrational.  He  shows  the  course  of  its 
own  dialectic  in  his  Phänomenologie  des  Geistes , of  which  Dr. 
Harris  has  given  an  excellent  expository  resume  in  his 
Hegel’s  Logic. 

Any  single  State,  however,  like  an  isolated  man,  is  imper- 
fect and  incomplete.  Its  realization  demands  neighborly, 


52 


EXPOSITION. 


social  relations  with  and  recognition  by  other  States.  In- 
ternational comity  is  a high  ethical  form,  but  is  always 
limited  by  the  national  spirit  of  the  various  States.  The 
will  of  man  is  not  fully  realized  in  any  one  State  or  federa- 
tion of  States.  Hence  we  must  turn  to  Universal  History, 
to  see  the  fullest  and  most  specialized  forms  of  its  develop- 
ment. The  world-spirit,  as  the  most  concrete  expression  of 
universal  human  will,  comes  to  view  through  the  dialectic 
of  the  various  national  spirits  in  Universal  History.  This 
world-spirit  appears  in  the  world-history  as  the  judgment  of 
the  world  — the  verdict  of  this  spirit  upon  the  validity  of 
what  is  contributed  by  each  nation. 

In  his  Philosophy  of  History,  he  shows  how  the  successive 
ethical  institutions  and  ideals  are  developed  for  man  uni- 
versal through  nations  as  individuals.  In  the  progress  of 
man  into  the  consciousness  and  realization  of  substantial 
freedom,  the  drama  of  self-education  under  divine  teaching 
proceeds  by  fixed  steps.  The  Oriental  nations  knew  that 
one  — the  despot  — was  free.  In  Greece  and  Rome  indi- 
vidualities are  developed,  and  some  become  conscious  of 
their  freedom.  Finally,  with  the  Germanic  world,  under  the 
inspiration  of  a reformed  Christianity,  maturity  is  reached, 
and  it  is  known  that  all  men  (man  as  man)  are  free.  Through- 
out this  drama  of  history  there  is,  however,  the  guiding 
hand  of  Providence.  Nations  may  fret  and  toil  and  advance, 
ri^e,  ripen,  and  rot,  but  the  drama  continues  its  teleological 
progress  towards  the  attainment  of  the  spiritual  freedom  of 
man  in  conscious  God-sonship,  because  of  the  immanent 
Providence  who  always  rules  and  transcends  all  the  acts  of 
the  drama.  Hegel  sees  one  increasing  purpose  run  through 
the  ages  because  he  sees  God  in  history.  Man  proposes 
and  God  disposes,  making  even  the  wrath  of  man  to  praise 
him.  His  guidance  is  not  arbitrary  or  artificial,  but  remains 
the  unchanging  condition  of  all  human  endeavor  at  self- 
realization. 


EXPOSITION. 


53 


The  visible  result,  the  progressive  realization  of  freedom 
by  man,  affords  the  “ true  theodicy,  the  justification  of  God 
in  history.”  Such  is  the  triumphant  conclusion  of  his 
Philosophy  of  History. 

And  this  affords  us  an  answer  to  a question  that  forces 
itself  upon  us  in  studying  Hegel’s  ethics.  Does  he  carry 
ethics  up  into  the  sphere  of  absolute  spirit  as  he  does  art, 
religion,  and  philosophy ; or  does  he  leave  them  below  in 
the  objective  world?  Are  they  merely  “secular  ethics,” 
or  does  he  give  a metaphysic  of  ethics  which  enswathes, 
permeates,  and  elevates  them  to  the  sphere  of  absolute 
spirit  ? We  answer  no  and  yes. 

No  ! He  did  not  formally  treat  of  the  science  of  absolute 
ethics  ( Sittlichkeit ).  He  did  not  formally  develop  the  science 
of  the  metaphysic  of  ethics.  He  did  not  formally  carry  it 
over  into  the  realm  of  absolute  spirit  along  with  art,  religion, 
and  philosophy.  But  neither  did  he  ever  proclaim  any  form  of 
ethical  life  as  ultimate.  No  State  ever  exhausted  the  ethical 
capacity  of  man.  Universal  history,  too,  is  seen  to  be  an 
ever-tending  and  never-ending  process  towards  the  perfection 
of  man.  To  know  and  to  be  himself,  is  the  constant  endea- 
vor of  man  that  Hegel  traces  in  his  Philosophy  of  History. 
But  note  that  it  is  never  man  apart  from  God,  that  makes 
any  progress.  The  all-animating  cause  of  progress  is  the 
immanent  divine  spirit,  and  every  step  forward  is  really  pos- 
sible only  through  this  Divine  metaphysic  of  the  all  knowing 
and  doing. 

Yes ! Hegel  throughout  all  his  works  is  laboring  to  bring 
this  Divine  metaphysics  to  men’s  conscious  recognition, 
in  which  alone,  he  maintains,  can  men  and  States  find  their 
proper  realization. 

In  speaking  of  the  Idealität  (the  state  of  being  reduced 
from  independence  to  a factor  or  member)  of  ethics  he  says: 1 
u Idealität,  as  such,  must  receive  a pure  absolute  form,  which 


1 Hegel’s  Werke,  Band  I.,  400. 


54 


EXPOSITION. 


is  to  be  intuited  and  reverenced  as  the  God  of  the  Nation. 
This,  too,  can  only  have  its  joyous  activity  in  a cult  or  form 
of  worship.”  Again,  in  speaking  of  the  limits  of  ethicality , 
he  says:1  “It  cannot  flee  for  its  fulfilment  to  the  formless- 
ness of  cosmopolitanism,  nor  to  the  emptiness  of  the  rights 
of  humanity  or  of  a republic  of  nations.  The  richest  and 
most  free  individuality  is  only  possible  in  relation  to  the 
Absolute  Idea." 

In  his  Philosophie  des  Geistes ,2  in  speaking  of  this  ele- 
vation of  the  moralized  consciousness  to  the  knowledge 
of  God,  he  says  that  Kant’s  starting-point  at  least  is  most 
correct  in  so  far  as  he  considers  faith  in  God  as  proceeding 
from  the  Practical  Reason,  as  the  true  nature  of  God  is 
active,  working  reason,  i.  e.,  the  self-determining  and  realizing 
concept  itself — Freedom.  . . . True  religion  and  true  re- 
ligiosity proceed  from  ethicality.  Through  this  alone  is  the 
Idea  of  God  known  as  Free  Spirit.  It  is  vain  to  seek  for 
true  religion  outside  of  ethicality.” 

It  is  needless  to  multiply  quotations,  for  the  latter  part 
of  Hegel’s  Encyclopedia  treats  of  this  relation  to  the  Absolute 
Spirit  under  the  rubrics  of  the  Beautiful , the  Good  and  the 
True , each  of  which  he  afterwards  elaborated  in  separate 
treatises.  God  is  the  alpha  and  the  omega  of  all  human 
knowledge  and  experience.  Ethics  is  the  course  of  the 
realization  of  the  potentially  universal  will  of  man.  Real- 
ized to  the  fullest  extent  in  secular  relations,  it  still  strives 
after  its  infinite  ideal.  No  community  or  State  affords  its 
adequate  realization.  It  runs  up  into  the  ideal  humanity 
in  God.  The  State  as  “ the  terrestrial  God  ” and  the  World- 
Spirit  are  not  yet  the  Spirit  of  the  Universe,  not  yet  God. 
The  perpetual  struggle  of  morality  merges  into  the  religion 
of  at-one-ment  with  God.  Here  the  process  of  self-realiza- 
tion is  perfect  through  faith.  Religion  is  essentially  ethical 
— a self-realization  of  the  infinite  self.  Reference  may  here 

1 Hegel’s  Werke,  Hand  I.,  422. 


8 552- 


EXPOSITION. 


55 


be  made  to  Principal  Caird’s  chapter  on  “ The  Religious 
Life,”1  where  he  elaborates  in  a most  beautiful  way  Hegel’s 
profound  conception  as  to  the  relation  of  morality  and 
religion. 

In  his  Phänomenologie , Hegel  makes  the  transition  from 
ethics  to  religion  through  the  act  of  the  forgiveness  of  the 
wicked.  This  negation  of  a negation  is  the  mind’s  majestic 
act  in  ascending  from  the  sphere  of  the  finite  and  relative 
to  its  native  home  with  Absolute  Spirit.  This  is  the  sphere 
of  religion,  where  all  the  discords  and  failures  of  the 
ethical  sphere  are  transcended  and  transmuted  by  the  spirit’s 
union  with  God.  Thus  the  ethical  consciousness  rests  upon 
and  is  possible  only  through  its  relation  of  dependence  upon 
religion  as  its  own  higher  form. 

Ethical  man,  in  his  most  comprehensive  and  ripest  earthly 
relations,  is  not  a little  god  by  himself.  Self-realization  is 
impossible  even  in  the  widest  ethical  ( sittliche ) institutions. 
Personality  can  only  approximate  realization  in  conscious 
relation  with  the  Absolute  Personality.  Thus  ethics,  as  the 
science  of  man,  reaches  its  highest  form  in  Christian  ethics, 
■ — that  is,  in  that  form  and  spirit  of  life  congruous  with  the 
Christian  conception  of  man.  “ The  measure  of  the  stature 
of  the  fulness  of  Christ”  is  the  norm  of  man’s  self-realiza- 
tion. The  Christian  “secularization  of  morals”  means  the 
realization  of  the  kingdom  of  God  on  earth.  Any  lower 
view  really  dehumanizes  man  in  abstracting  him  from  all 
that  is  most  essential  and  substantial.  The  new  birth  into 
Christ  and  his  kingdom  is  the  absolutely  essential  condi- 
tion of  a normal  ethical  life  on  earth.  To  live  aright  one 
must  love  aright,  for  what  one  loves  he  lives.  Hence 
Christian  love  is  the  all-comprehensive  activity,  which 
is  the  condition  of  ethical  life  in  the  individual  and 
society. 

1 An  Introduction  to  the  Philosophy  of  Religion,  by  John  Caird, 
D.D.,  chap.  IX. 


56 


EXPOSITION. 


In  nil  ethical  ( sittliche ) spheres  man  is  relatively  realizing 
himself  under  the  “disposing”  of  God,  however  he  himself 
may  “propose.”  Thus  we  see  Hegel  finding  a relative  self- 
realization  of  man  in  the  family,  which  is  organic  to  a larger 
life  in  society.  In  the  State  the  same  process  goes  on,  and 
transition  is  made  to  the  larger  life  of  self-realization  in 
“universal  history.” 

But  universal  history  again  is  seen  to  manifest  the  inade- 
quateness of  attainment,  and  becomes  organic  to  the  perfect 
consummation  of  man  in  the  discovery  and  adoption  of  the 
revealed  will  of  God  as  the  absolute  standard  of  an  ethical 
life,  so  that  man  becomes  consciously  a child  of  God  and 
a co-worker  with  him.  This  insight  attained,  the  process 
begins  of  living  anew  and  aright  in  all  the  established  ethical 
institutions,  of  imbuing  the  secular  with  the  divine,  of  secu- 
larizing the  divine,  of  the  maintenance  of  the  kingdom  of 
God  on  earth  through  domestic,  social,  civil,  political,  and 
religious  institutions. 

The  Christian  banner  is  the  final  banner  of  free  spirit, 
recognizing  its  own  work  in  the  so-called  secular  institutions 
which  it  creates  and  animates.  All  these  Hegel  declares 
to  be  “ nothing  else  than  religion  manifesting  itself  in  the 
relations  of  the  actual  world.”  “The  Gospel  in  the  Secular 
life  ” expresses,  in  brief,  Hegel's  ultimate  conception  of 
ethics.  “The  spirit  finds  the  goal  of  its  struggle,  and  its 
harmonization  in  that  very  sphere  which  it  (as  mediaeval 
ecclesiasticism)  made  the  object  of  its  resistance  ; it  finds 
that  secular  pursuits  are  a spiritual  occupation  ( Philosophy 
of  History , p.  369). 

That  which  vitalizes  and  moralizes  each  one  of  these 
secular  spheres,  that  which  is  their  constant  presupposition 
and  life  — their  metaphysic  — is  the  life  of  God  in  the  mind 
and  heart  of  social  man,  guiding,  luring,  and  impelling  him  on 
to  self-realization  in  the  sustaining  environment  of  spiritual, 
substantial  freedom,  — the  republic  of  God.  Thus  Hegel 


KE  V-  WORDS. 


57 


finds  ethics  to  be  not  an  abstract  decalogue  falling  straight 
from  heaven,  but  rather  a slowly-worked-out  process  of  the 
heavenly  in  the  earthly  sphere,  ft  is  the  kingdom  of  God 
coming,  and  His  universal  will  being  done  on  earth  as  it  is 
in  heaven. 

IV. 

Key-words. 

German  Wörterbücher  are  of  very  little  service  in  translating 
Hegel.  He  uses  even  ordinary  terms  in  an  extraordinary 
or  technical  sense  ; but  he  does  this  consistently.  His 
terms  are  not  only  pregnant,  but  they  also  have  thoroughly 
definite  significance,  and  thus  enable  him  to  put  his  philos- 
ophy in  dry  scientific  form.  Hence  it  demands  the  sort  of 
reading  that  one  would  give  to  Newton’s  Prmcipia  or 
Spinoza’s  Ethica. 

The  mastery  of  these  key-words  in  English  will  greatly 
facilitate,  indeed,  is  indispensable  to  the  understanding  of 
his  thought.  We  therefore  give  the  following  list  of  them 
with  the  translations  which  we  have  quite  uniformly  followed 
in  this  volume  : 

Abstrakt — Concxet.  These  two  terms  represent  the  be- 
ginning and  the  end  of  every  concept , institution,  or  thing 
that  Hegel  treats  of  ; that  is,  he  first  treats  it  as  abstracted 
from  all  connexion  with  environing  context.  But  as  viewed, 
it  gradually  demands  and  attains  all  its  proper  relations. 
It  becomes  a self-developed  and  self-developing  process, 
assimilating  all  that  it  comes  into  relation  with,  and  thus  is 
concrete. 

An  sich , für  sich,  and  an  und  für  sich  are,  however,  much 
more  frequently  used  by  Hegel  to  express  somewhat  the 
same  states  or  phases  of  an  object,  concept,  person,  or  in- 
stitution. Any  one  of  these  is  an  sich  when  it  is  still  in  the 
germ,  merely  implicit  or  potential,  latent  or  undeveloped ; 


KEY-WORDS. 


58 

not  only  in  germ,  but  also  closed  up  in  itself  against  all 
vital  interconnexion  with  its  context,  and  thus  abstract.  It 
becomes  für  sich  when  its  germ  is  developed,  when  it  be- 
comes explicit  and  actual.  But  further  it  becomes  an  und 
für  sich  when  its  individuality  has  become  completely  uni- 
versalized, or  when  its  latent  universality  has  been  com- 
pletely specified,  and  its  relations  to  all  its  context  realized 
through  its  own  self-activity.  It  is  thus  the  concrete,  the 
absolute,  the  independent,  through  having  absorbed  all 
limits  into  self-characterizing  properties. 

Besonderheit  (particularity)  is  an  intermediate  between 
Allgemeinheit  (universality)  and  Einzelheit  (individuality). 
The  abstract,  potential  universal  is  more  and  more  particu- 
larized, till  self-specification  is  completed  in  the  concrete 
individual. 

Aufheben— setzen.  — These  two  terms  express  the  activity 
in  this  process  from  the  abstract  through  the  particular 
to  the  concrete.  Setzen  is  to  posit,  particularize,  specify, 
explicitly  state  the  ideal  elements'  in  the  an  sich  stage  and 
thus  to  raise  it  to  the  für  sich  stage.  But  each  one  of  the 
various  specifications  is  in  turn  posited  as  absolute  and 
final.  Hence  there  could  never  be  more  than  one  made 
(gesetzt),  posited,  without  the  concomitant,  or,  rather,  the 
following  of  the  activity  expressed  by  the  term  auf  heben. 
This  term,  as  Hegel  tells  us  (Logic,  § 96),  has  the  double 
signification  of  “(1)  to  destroy  or  annul;  (2)  to  retain  or 
preserve.”  Thus  the  Gospel  abrogates,  annuls  the  Law  and 
yet  fulfils  it,  retains  it  in  transmuted  form  as  an  element 
(moment)  of  itself. 

Moment.  — Phase,  element,  factor  of  a whole.  What  has 
been  specified  as  a Besonderheit,  as  für  sich  is  aufgehoben  to 
a moment  or  organic  element  of  a larger  unity.  Its  inde- 
pendence (für  sich)  is  destroyed,  and  yet  it  is  preserved  as 
an  integral  element.  Its  isolated  reality  is  annulled  (aufge- 
hoben) through  its  being  preserved  as  a dynamic  factor  in  a 


KE  V-  WORDS. 


59 


more  concrete  unity.  The  acid  and  base  are  aufgehoben  in 
the  salt.  Hegel  also  uses  the  term  Idealität  as  opposed  to 
Realität  to  express  the  same  relation.  Realität  is  the 
explicit,  specified  form  — the  für  sich  of  Particularität. 
This  is  reduced  to  its  Idealität  or  to  being  an  ideal  ( ideell ) 
moment,  or  dynamic  factor. 

Begriff.  — I have  used  the  term  concept  in  place  of  idea, 
or  of  the  barbarous  term  notion,  as  the  best  translation  of 
Begriff — a gripping  together,  comprehension,  concept  ( con - 
cipio).  This  is  the  key-word  to  Hegel.  He  uses  it  to 
express  the  concrete  reality,  the  living  process  of  passing 
from  the  an  sich  through  the  für  sich  to  the  an  und  für  sich, 
through  the  successive  negations  of  successively  posited 
specifications.  It  embraces  all  the  processes  hitherto 
named.  It  is  at  once  these  processes  and  the  result  of 
them.  “ It  is  the  power  of  substance  in  the  fruition  of  its 
own  being,  and  therefore  that  which  is  free.  It  forms  a 
systematic  whole,  in  which  each  of  its  elementary  functions 
is  the  very  total  which  the  concept  is,  and  posited  as  indis- 
solubly one  with  it.”  1 It  is  the  fully  developed  unity  of  all 
previous  abstract  and  partial  forms.  It  is  the  truth  of  the 
thing  in  its  utmost  active  self-realization.  Idee  (Idea)  is 
Hegel’s  term  for  the  Concept  of  Concepts,  the  ultimate, 
infinite,  absolute  self-activity,  God,  the  process  which  pro- 
duces Himself  eternally.  This,  however,  strictly  falls  with- 
out the  subject  matter  of  the  present  treatise,  except  in 
so  far  as  all  moral  and  ethical  phases  of  man  have  their 
real  ground  in  the  Idea.  This  treatise  is  concerned  with 
the  development  of  the  concept  of  the  universal  human  will 
in  secular  relations. 

Bestimmung. — There  is  no  other  word  which,  with  its 
cognates,  occurs  so  frequently  in  this  treatise.  I generally 
translate  this  word  by  determination,  specification,  or  char- 
acterization. It  is  from  bestimmen  — to  be-voice,  to  vocalize, 


1 Logic,  § 1 6o. 


6o 


KEY-WORDS. 


to  audibly  specify,  to  point  out  and  thus  determine  or  char- 
acterize its  object.  Bestimmtheit  is  the  resulting  definite- 
ness or  character.  Unbestimmtheit  is  the  state  of  lacking  all 
definite,  specific  characterization. 

Dasein  I have  generally  translated  as  determinate  being , 
sometimes  by  definite  or  positive  existence. 

Wirklichkeit , actuality.  Hegel  says  (§  82)  “ actuality  is 
that  which  acts,  works  (wirkt)  and  preserves  itself  in  its 
work  or  other , being  realized  rather  than  lost  through  such 
work.” 

Unmittelbar , that  which  is  immediate  or  unmediated, 
referring  to  the  way  a thing  presents  itself  to  us  directly, 
as  “a  shot  out  of  a pistol.”  It  corresponds  to  the  an  sich 
phase  of  the  concept.  The  immediate  is  the  undeveloped 
in  its  relation  to  us. 

Vermittelt , that  which  is  mediated  ; that  which  is  known 
by  means  of  relations  and  environment. 

Moralität-Sittlichkeit.  — As  we  have  elsewhere  given  full 
exposition  of  these  terms,  we  may  here  give  their  simple 
translation  as  morality  (subjective)  and  ethicality  (objective). 

Unendlich.  — That  is  infinite  which  has  only  itself  for  its 
object,  that  which  is  reflected  back  from  externalities  within 
itself,  as  a closed  and  self-sufficient  process,  — the  infinite 
of  the  circle  rather  than  of  the  line,  the  qualitative  instead 
of  the  quantitative  infinite. 

The  object  of  Hegel’s  Rechtsphilosophie  is  the  exposition 
of  the  concept  (Begriff)  of  the  will , as  thought  in  the  process 
of  translating  itself  into  actuality  or  determinate  being, 
its  most  specified  and  concrete  form.  He  begins  with 
the  will  as  implicit  (an  sich),  immediate  ( unmittelbar ),  and 
abstract  (abstrakt),  following  it  through  all  its  posited 
(gesetzte)  phases  ( Momenta ) of  particularity  (BesoJiderheit) 
from  undeveloped  universality  to  its  complete,  concrete, 
and  thoroughly  mediated  (vermittelt)  form  of  the  concept 
(Begriff),  by  successive  determinations  (Bestimmungen)  and 


KEY-WORDS. 


61 

forms  of  determinate  being  (. Dasein ),  which  are  as  succes- 
sively abrogated  and  integrated  {aufgehoben).  These  stages 
represent  the  various  imperfect  relations  of  particular  will 
to  universal  will,  the  aim  being  to  thoroughly  particularize 
abstractly  universal  will,  and  thus  exhibit  it  in  its  truth,  i.  e., 
in  its  freedom. 


ABSTRACT 


OF 

HEGEL’S  INTRODUCTION. 


In  his  Preface  Hegel  says  that  the  object  of  a Philosophy 
of  Right  cannot  be  the  discovery  of  rights  and  morals,  as 
these  are  already  age-old  and  well  known,  but  only  to  win 
for  them  such  rational  form  or  system  as  may  justify  them 
to  the  free  rational  spirit.  Philosophy’s  task  is  not  to  create 
but  to  understand  existing  reality.  He  sets  aside  the  preten- 
tions of  the  so-called  rationalistic  philosophy  for  the  severer 
labor  of  showing  how 

“ The  rational  is  the  real, 

And  the  real  the  rational.” 

The  real  is  the  Reason  or  the  Divine  mind,  the  creator  of  the 
world  as  its  own  progressive  revelation.  Hence  the  world 
throughout  must  be  fundamentally  rational.  The  Philosophy 
of  Right  is  a comprehension  and  an  exposition  of  this  reality 
at  the  foundation  of,  and  throbbing  through,  all  forms  of 
social  and  political  institutions.  Its  task  is  not  to  go  beyond 
these  forms  and  construe  an  ideal  morality  and  society,  but 
to  note  the  phases  of  rationality  in  existing  forms  and  thus 
to  reconcile  us  with  reality.  The  rationalism  which  refuses 
to  accept  anything  which  it  cannot  reduce  to  the  form  of 
conceptions  of  the  understanding  has  well  been  said  to  lead 
away  from  God.  But  genuine  philosophy  leads  up  through 
the  immanent  God  to  the  transcendent  God,  whether  it  traces 
the  Divine  ( The  Idea)  working  in  the  forms  of  nature,  of 
human  thought,  or  in  those  of  human  institutions. 


64  ABSTRACT  OF  HEGEL'S  INTRODUCTION. 


In  his  Introduction  he  says  that  such  a science  has  to  deal 
with  the  Idea  of  Rights,  as  well  as  with  the  Concept  of  Rights 
and  its  actualization  into  objective  existence  — in  other  words 
with  the  soul  and  body  of  ethical  institutions  as  animated 
by  the  Divine  Spirit.  The  soul  is  to  be  discovered  in  its 
own  development  of  the  body,  being  its  first  entelechy  or  its 
truth.  Montesquieu  rightly  apprehended  the  various  his- 
torical elements  and  positive  forms  of  right  as  organic  mem- 
bers of  a totality  or  system  (concept). 

I The  real  ground  of  all  rights  is  the  spiritual.  The  start- 
ing-point is  the  will  that  is  free.  Freedom  is  the  very  sub- 
stance and  character  of  will,  bringing  forth  the  spiritual 
world  on  earth.  It  is  the  fundamental  characteristic  of  the 
twill,  just  as  weight  is  of  matter. 

The  will  is  not  a faculty  diverse  from  thought.  The  will 
is  rather  a particular  form  of  thought.  It  is  thought  trans- 
lating itself  into  determinate  being.  The  will  is  free. 
Without  freedom  it  is  an  empty  word.  In  its  first  or 
unmediated  phase,  the  will  is  only  formally  free.  Abstrac- 
tion is  made  of  the  v/ill  from  all  definite  form  or  content 
in  order  to  reach  this  phase  of  pure  indeterminateness  of 
the  will,  where  it  can  will  one  thing  just  as  well  as  another, 
e.  g.,  to  destroy  as  well  as  to  create  social  and  ethical  insti- 
tutions. The  direct  actualization  of  such  formless  freedom 
would  be  the  furies  of  destruction.  Another  phase  is  that 
: of  the  indeterminate  will  passing  out  into  determinations. 
I This  is  the  limiting,  negating  phase  of  the  abstractly  infinite 
j will  of  the  first  phase.  But  the  genuine  will  is  really  the 
unity  of  both  these  phases.  It  is  self-realized,  self-filled. 
This  will  is  thoroughly  identical  with  its  content.  The  will 
j wills  what  it  is.  It  is  always  and  everywhere  at  home  with 
itself  — always  its  own  object,  everywhere  fully  developed 
and  active. 

The  natural  man,  however,  is  such  will  only  potentially,  as 
the  acorn  is  the  oak.  It  is  imbedded  in  all  sorts  of  desires, 


ABSTRACT  OB  HEGEL'S  INTRODUCTION.  65 


inclinations  and  wants.  It  appears  as  caprice  and  hence  as 
irrational.  One  deems  himself  free  when  he  can  do  as  he 
likes,  satisfy  this  or  that  desire  or  whim  at  will.  But  such 
caprice  is  seen  to  be  suicidal  to  the  whole  mass  of  desires. 
There  must  be  a system  of  them  in  which  each  one  shall  find 
its  appropriate  place.  This  occurs  through  reflexion,  which 
brings  forward  the  idea  of  happiness , as  the  primary  form  of 
the  universal  for  the  will.  Still  this  is  but  a particular  form, 
inadequate  to  the  concept  of  the  will.  It  is  purified  through 
the  more  universal,  though  the  abstract  conception  of  duty , 
and  then  returns  to  the  concrete  world  to  find  itself  in  all  its 
activity  with  both  of  these  elements  of  happiness  and  duty. « 
t Here  we  reach  the  most  concrete  form  of  the  will  that  is 
free.  It  is  self-characterizing  in  all  its  activity.  It  is  think- 
ing intelligence  actualizing  itself,  recognizing  as  virtually  its 
own  deed  the  deeds  of  corporate  humanity  and  so  being  self- 
determined  even  in  its  strictest  obedience  to  current  customs 
and  authorities.  In  all  his  content  the  thinking  man  finds 
only  his  own  substance.  Such  a rational,  free  will  Hegel 
declares  to  be  infinite  and  absolute , because  it  is  always  its 
ow?i  object,  which  is  thus  never  an  external  limit.  Chains 
of  his  prison  house  are  his  own  chains.  The  self  is  con- 
scious of  itself  as  a whole  system.  Its  consciousness  of 
jtself  is  a closed  circle.  It  is  everywhere  reflected  back 
upon  itself  instead  of  going  further  and  further  into  the  un- 
known. The  will  is  thus  truly  infinite,  as  any  circle  may  be 
Said  to  be  infinite,  which  cannot  be  said  of  any  straight  line, 
however  far  it  be  produced.  Such  a will  willing  only  itself 
is  thus  infinite. 

But  even  this  true  form  of  the  will  is  primarily  abstract 
and  passes  through  various  stadia.  These  various  forms  of 
self-determination  in  this  activity  of  the  will  are  what  we 
term  rights.  Rights  are  something  holy  because  they  are  the 
self-determinations  of  rational  freedom.  Every  stage  of  the  j 
development  of  the  free  will  has  its  corresponding  rights,  j 


66 


ABSTRACT  OF  HEGEL'S  INTRODUCTION. 


f Collisions  can  come  only  when  these  rights  are  all  placed 
upon  an  equality,  no  allowance  being  made  for  progressive 
| development,  and  thus  for  a system  of  rights  in  which  one  is 
I higher  than  another,  because  belonging  to  a higher  phase  of 
the  will’s  activity.  Subjective  conscience  and  objective  codes 
are  each  a special  form  of  rights,  because  each  of  them  is  a 
definite  form  of  active,  free  will.  They  can  come  into  col- 
lision only  because  they  are  both  rights.  The  collision  can  , 
only  be  solved  in  the  whole  system  of  actualized  will.  This  is  | 
found  in  no  one  person.  It  is  only  the  world-spirit  that  is  | 
universal  and  whose  rights  are  ultimate,  subordinating  all 
other  forms  of  right.  We  shall  elsewhere  note  that  even  this  ] 
unlimited  will,  this  absolute,  “ terrestrial  god  ” is  not  abso- 
lutely ultimate.  It  is  only  a relative  absolute,  the  highest 
phase  of  the  actualization  of  objective  spirit,  which  points 
to  and  leads  into  the  realm  of  the  absolutely  Absolute  Spirit, 
into  the  higher  forms  of  the  spirit  in  the  spheres  of  art,  re- 
ligion and  philosophy,  for  its  fruition.  The  Philosophy  of 
Right  seeks  to  trace  the  immanent  dialectic  of  free  will  as  it 
moves  through  the  various  forms,  from  the  most  abstract  to 
the  most  concrete  and  ripest  form.  This  dialectic  is  the 
very  life  of  the  spirit  and  thus  something  quite  different  from 
the  negative  form  used  by  the  Sophists  and  sometimes  even 
by  Plato.  It  is  not  the  dialectic  of  mere  subjective  thought, 
but  the  spirit’s  own  activity,  organizing  itself  in  definite  forms. 
The  progress  of  the  dialectic  is  always  from  the  abstract  to 
the  more  concrete,  from  the  seed,  through  trunk,  branches 
and  flower  to  the  fruit-bearing  tree.  While  the  historical 
phases  of  man’s  progress  into  freedom  afford  abundant  illus- 
trations, its  chronological  order  does  not  run  pari  passu  with 
the  logical  order , which  the  dialectic  or  speculative  method 
follows.  This  method  alone  can  give  scientific  form  to  con- 
tingent historical  phases,  because  it  exhibits  each  phase  as 
the  expression  of  a particular  form  of  the  concept  of  freedom, 
and  all  as  members  of  the  organic  Idea  of  absolute  free  will. 


ABSTRACT  OF  HEGEL'S  INTRODUCTION.  67 

Starting  with  the  most  abstract  form  of  the  will,  which  he 
takes  as  ready  to  hand,  he  divides  the  whole  work,  as  usual, 
into  triadic  form  : 

I.  The  unmediated  form  of  the  will  asserting  itself  as  per- 
son in  external  things  — the  sphere  of  abstract  or  formal 
rights. 

II.  The  will  reflected  back  from  mere  external  things  into 
itself  as  a closed  infinite  circle,  or  subjective  individuality 
opposed  to  will  objective  in  mere  things.  This  gives  the 
sphere  of  Moralität,  or  of  conscience  contra  mundum. 

III.  The  will  as  the  unity  of  these  two  abstract  phases, 
realizing  itself  at  once  in  both  objective  and  subjective  right. 
This  is  the  realm  of  Sittlichkeit , or  the  ethical  world,  as  the 
concrete  realization  of  man  as  will.  This  includes  the  sphere  ~l/ 
of  ( a ) the  family,  ( b ) the  civic  community,  ( c ) the  State 

in  the  most  concrete  sense  of  the  term  — the  organic 
unity  of  the  individual  wills  of  a whole  nation.  Ultimately, 
however,  it  is  the  federation  of  nations,  or  the  universal  his- 
tory of  humanity  that  gives  us  the  realization  of  man  as  will 
in  the  most  cosmopolitan  sense  of  the  term.  Thus  hu- 
manity’s rights  are  the  highest  kind  of  rights. 

This  division  proceeds  upon  the  principle  of  the  Logic , 
that  the  first  form  of  anything  is  the  un mediated,  hence  the 
most  abstract  and  poorest  form.  It  also  seeks  abundant 
historical  illustrations,  though  a philosophical  division  of  a 
subject  follows  the  immanent  dialectic  of  the  Idea  rather 
than  that  of  external  material. 

“ Subjective  morality  ( Moralität ) and  ethical  or  objective 
morality  ( Sittlichkeit ) which  are  ordinarily  used  as  synonyms, 
are  here  used  in  essentially  different  senses.  Kantian  writers 
use  by  preference  the  term  morality  ( Moralität ) and  the 
practical  principle  of  this  philosophy  is  entirely  limited 
to  this  subjective  side,  rendering  impossible  and  really 
negating  the  standpoint  of  ethics  ( Sittlichkeit ) or  objective 
morality.  That  these  two  terms  have  etymologically  the 


68 


ABSTRACT  OF  HEGEL'S  INTRODUCTION. 


same  significance  does  not  prevent  our  using  them  for 
. different  conceptions.” 

The  term  “right”  throughout  this  treatise  is  used  in  its 
widest  sense,  embracing  subjective  and  objective  morality 
as  well  as  civil  and  humanitarian  rights. 

The  first  form  of  right  is  that  of  abstract  objectivity,  i.  e., 
property  as  belonging  to  a person.  The  negation  of  this 
standpoint  is  that  of  subjective  morality,  or  the  assertion  of 
the  worth  of  the  subjective  self.  But  this  subjective  con- 
science demands  that  it  have  objective  might,  as  it  has 
subjective  right.  It  seeks  to  have  its  will  done  upon  earth. 
But  both  these  phases  are  abstract  and  find  their  truth  in 
the  standpoint  of  objective  morality  ( Sittlichkeit ).  Its  first 
form,  however,  that  of  the  Family,  is  a natural  state  in  which 
the  individual  has  yielded  up  his  rude  personality  and  finds 
his  true  self  in  the  larger  self  of  the  family.  The  next 
sphere,  that  of  civil  society , however,  shows  a loss  of  this 
immediate  unity  of  affection.  It  is  wrong  to  call  this 
sphere  the  State,  as  its  only  bond  of  unity  is  that  of  re- 
ciprocal wants,  of  independent  individuals.  In  the  State 
proper  we  have  the  concretest  form  of  objective  morality, 
uniting  independence  and  individuality  with  the  universal 
substance.  Right  in  the  State  is  higher  than  in  the  family 
or  in  civil  society.  It  is  freedom  in  its  most  concrete  form 
“ as  realized  in  the  universal  history  of  humanity. 


SELECTIONS 

TRANSLATED  FROM 

Hegel’s  Philosophie  des  Rechts . 


TRANSLATION. 


FIRST  PART. 

ABSTRACT  RIGHT. 

§ 34. 

The  absolutely  free  will,  if  we  consider  it  according  to  its 
abstract  concept  {Begriff)  is  in  its  most  undeveloped  and 
unreal  form  — that  of  mere  immediacy.  Considered  in  this 
most  imperfect  form  it  is  only  abstract  actuality  (i.  e.,  mere 
potentiality)  relating  merely  to  itself  and  negative  in  regard 
to  all  reality.  It  exists  thus  in  itself  as  particular  will  of  a 
subject.  According  to  the  phase  of  particularity  the  will  has 
a further  content  of  definite  aims.  But,  as  excluding  individ- 
uality, it  has  this  content  at  the  same  time  as  an  external 
and  immediately  present  world  that  happens  to  be  before  it. 

Supplementary.  — When  it  is  said  that  the  absolutely  free  f 
will,  as  it  exists  in  its  merely  abstract  concept , is  in  the  form  i 
of  immediacy  it  must  be  understood  in  the  following  way.  \ 
The  fully  perfected  Idea  {Idee)  of  the  will  would  be  the  con- 
dition in  which  the  concept  would  have  fully  realized  itself, 
and  in  which  its  determinate  being  {Dasein)  would  be 
nothing  other  than  its  own  development.  At  first,  however, 
the  concept  is  abstract,  containing  all  sorts  of  definite  con- 
tents. But  these  contents  are  as  yet  merely  potential  and 
undeveloped.  If  I say  “ I am  free  ” the  “I  ” which  is  free, 
is  simply  this  oppositionless  potential  being,  whereas  in 
morality  there  is  actual  opposition.  On  the  one  hand  I am 
*an  individual  will,  and  on  the  other  is  the  good  or  the 


72 


ABSTRACT  RIGHT. 


universal  even  though  it  be  in  myself.  Thus  in  morality  the 
will  already  contains  the  distinctions  of  individuality  and 
universality  and  is  thus  rendered  definite.  But  primarily  no 
such  a distinction  is  present.  For  in  the  first  abstract  unity 
there  is  neither  progress  nor  mediation.  The  will  is  thus 
simply  in  the  form  of  immediacy,  or  of  mere  being  (Sein). 
The  essential  insight  to  be  reached  here  is  that  this  lack  of 
determinateness  or  characterization  is  itself  a sort  of  deter- 
mination of  the  will.  For  it  consists  in  the  lack,  as  yet,  of 
any  difference  between  the  will  and  its  content.  But  this, 
being  opposed  to  characterization  brings  itself  to  the  char- 
acter of  being  a determined  thing.  This  characterization  is 
here  simply  that  of  abstract  identity.  The  will  becomes 
thereby  individual  will  — the  person. 

§ 35. 

The  universality  of  this  for  itself  free  will  is  merely 
formal  relation  to  its  own  self.  This  is  indeed  a self-conscious 
though  contentless  relation.  The  subject  is  thus  far  person. 
The  conception  of  personality  implies  that  I as  person, 
perfect  in  every  way  (in  subjective  willfulness,  instinct, 
desire  as  well  as  in  respect  to  my  merely  external  existence) 
am  determined  and  finite,  and  yet  that  I am  absolute 
relation  to  myself.  Thus  I know  myself,  in  finite  condi- 
tions, as  infinite,  universal  and  free. 

Personality  first  begins  here,  in  so  far  as  the  subject  has  not 
merely  self-consciousness  in  the  sense  of  conscious  relation 
to  external  things  but  where  he  has  consciousness  of  himself 
as  perfect  though  abstract  ego,  which  negates  all  concrete 
limitations  and  validity.  Thus  there  is  in  personality  the 
knowledge  of  self  as  object,  but  as  a purely  self-identical 
object  raised  through  thought  into  simple  infinitude.  Indi- 
viduals and  peoples  alike  lack  personality  in  so  far  as  they 
have  not  yet  attained  to  this  pure  thought  and  knowledge 
of  self.  . . . 


ABSTRACT  RIGHT. 


73 


Supplementary.  — It  is  the  merely  abstractly  independent 
will  that  we  call  person.  In  one  sense  it  is  rightly  held  that 
the  highest  destiny  of  man  is  that  of  being  person.  In  spite 
of  this,  however,  we  sometimes  use  this  term  person  in  a 
despicable  sense.  Person,  however,  is  essentially  different 
from  subject ; for  the  term  subject  expresses  only  the 
potentiality  of  personality.  In  this  way,  we  might  speak  of 
every  kind  of  living  beings  as  subjects.  Person,1  however, 
is  the  subject,  for  whom  subjectivity  is  consciously  a 
possession  ; for,  as  person,  I am  absolutely  for  myself. 
Person  is  the  individuality  of  freedom  in  pure  self-acquired 
being.  As  such  a person,  I know  myself  as  free  in  myself, 
and  can  abstract  myself  from  every  condition  and  circum- 
stance, as  there  is  naught  but  pure  personality  before  me  ; 
and  yet  I am,  as  such,  an  entirely  determined  form  of  being. 
I am  so  old,  so  large,  in  this  place,  etc.  Personality  is  thus 
at  once  lofty  and  lowly.  It  contains  the  unity  of  the  finite 
and  the  infinite,  of  the  boundless  and  the  definitely  bounded. 
It  is  the  very  loftiness  of  personality  that  it  can  sustain  this 
contradiction,  which  could  neither  contain  nor  endure  any- 
thing purely  natural. 

§ 36. 

(i)  Personality,  in  general,  contains  the  capacity  of  rights, 
and  constitutes  the  concept  and  the  abstract  foundation  of 
merely  formal  right.  Hence,  the  precept  of  merely  abstract 
right  is  this  : Be  a person,  and  respect  others  as  persons. 


§ 37. 

(2)  Particularity  of  will  is  indeed  a phase  of  total  con- 
sciousness of  will  ; but  it  is  not  yet  explicitly  present  in 
abstract  personality  as  such.  It  is  present  only  as  different 
from  personality,  the  characteristic  of  freedom ; it  is  present 

1 Compare  with  this  Hegel’s  use  of  the  term  “ Subject”  in  the  higher 
sense,  in  § 105. 


74 


ABSTRACT  RIGHT. 


only  as  desire,  need,  instinct,  accidental  liking,  etc.  Thus, 
in  formal  rights,  there  is  no  question  concerning  particular 
interests,  — one’s  own  gains  or  welfare,  nor  concerning  the 
particular  ground  or  motive  of  one’s  will,  nor  concerning 
insight  and  intention. 

Supplement.  — The  element  of  particularity  not  yet  being  f 
present  in  the  person  in  the  form  of  freedom,  we  have,  at 
this  stage,  no  concern  with  anything  relating  to  it.  Where  / 
the  person  has  no  other  interests  than  his  formal  rights,  he  ■' 
is  likely  to  make  these  a matter  of  caprice,  especially  if  he  b 
be  of  narrow  mind  and  heart,  ft  is  chiefly  the  rough,  uncul-/ 
tivated  man  who  stands  for  his  rights,  while  the  magnanimous! 
man  considers  the  many  different  interests  involved  along 
with  his  own.  Thus,  abstract  right  is  at  first  merely  potential,! 
and  thus  quite  formal  in  regard  to  the  whole  circle  of  inter-v 
ests  involved.  Therefore,  the  legal  right  affords  a warrant, 
which,  however,  it  is  not  necessary  for  a cultured  man  to 
pursue,  because  it  represents  only  one  side  of  the  whole 
context ; for  potentiality  is  the  sort  of  being  which  has  also 
the  significance  of  not  being. 

§ 38. 

In  relation  to  the  concrete  activity  of  moral  and  ethical 
( sittlich ) relations,  we  may  say  that  abstract  right  is  onlj^ 
a potentiality,  and  legal  right  thus  only  a permission  or\ 
warrant.  The  necessity  of  this  sort  of  right  limits  itself, 
by  reason  of  its  abstractness,  to  the  negative  form  of  pre- 
serving personality  and  all  its  results  from  injury.  Hence, 
there  are  only  legal  prohiljLtions.  Even  the  positive  form 
of  legal  injunctions~has  only  prohibition  at  its  basis. 

§ 39. 

(3)  The  specific  and  immediate  individuality  of  the 
person  is  related  to  a world  of  nature,  over  against  which 
the  personality  of  the  will  stands  as  something  subjective. 


ABSTRACT  RIGHT. 


75 


But  the  limitation  of  subjectivity  to  this  personality  as 
something  universal  and  infinite,  is  something  quite  con- 
tradictory and  futile.  Personality  is  itself  the  activity  which 
abrogates  this  contradiction  and  gives  itself  reality,  or  what 
is  the  same,  posits  that  world  of  nature  as  being  its  own. 

§ 40. 

Rights  are  primarily,  the  immediate  form  of  determinate 
being  which  freedom  proposes  to  itself  : — | 

(a)  Possession  or  Property.  Freedom  is  here  that  of 
abstract  will  as  such,  or  of  a single  individual  as  a self- 
relating  personality. 

(, b ) The  person  distinguishing  himself  from  himself, 
relates  himself  to  another  person,  both  having  definite 
existence  for  each  other  only  so  far  as  they  both  are  owners 
of  property.  There  is  here  an  implicit  identity  which  gains 
definite  form  through  the  transference  of  the  property  of 
one  to  the  other.  This  involves  a common  will  and  the 
maintenance  of  rights.  This  is  the  sphere  of  Contract. 

(c)  The  will  in  relation  to  itself,  rather  than  as  distin- 
guished from  another  one,  contains  the  relation  of  particular 
will  as  opposed  to  itself  as  absolute  or  universal  will.  This 
is  the  sphere  of  Wro?ig  and  Cri?ne. 

. . . Here  it  is  evident  that  the  right  to  things  belongs 
only  to  personality  as  such.  The  so-called  rights  of  person 
among  the  Romans  implied  a man’s  having  the  status  of 
being  a legal  person.  Personality  was  thus  only  a status  as 
opposed  to  slavery.  . . . Hence,  such  rights  were  not  the 
rights  of  a person  as  such.  We  shall  see  later  on  that  the 
family  relation  involves,  as  its  essential  condition,  rather 
the  giving  up  of  personality,  or  of  the  strict  legal  rights 
of  person.  Hence,  it  is  not  the  place  to  treat  of  the  rights  ' 
of  definite  concrete  personality  before  treating  of  those 
of  abstract  personality.  . . . 


76 


ABSTRACT  RIGHT. 


FIRST  SECTION. 

Property. 

§ 41. 

In  order  that  a person  be  a fully  developed  and  independ- 
ent organism,  it  is  necessary  that  he  find  or  make  some 
external  sphere  for  his  freedom.  Because  the  person  as 
absolutely  existing,  infinite  will  is,  as  yet,  in  this  entirely 
abstract  form,  we  find  that  this  external  sphere  which  is 
essential  to  constitute  his  freedom,  is  designated  as  being 
equally  something  distinct  and  separable  from  himself. 

Supplement.  — The  rationality  of  property  does  not  lie  in 
its  satisfaction  of  wants,  but  in  its  abrogation  of  the  mere 
subjectivity  of  personality.  It  is  in  property  that  person 
primarily  exists  as  reason.  Although  the  primitive  reality 
of  my  freedom  in  an  external  thing  be  a bad  form  of 
reality,  still  abstract  personality  in  its  immediate  form 
can  have  no  other  sort  of  real  existence. 

§ 42. 

That  which  is  thus  immediately  distinct  from  the  free 
spirit,  is  for  this  free  spirit,  as  well  as  in  its  own  nature, 
something  external,  unfree,  impersonal  and  right-less.  . . . 

Supplement.  — As  this  thing  lacks  subjectivity,  it  is  some- 
thing external  not  only  to  the  subject  but  also  to  itself. 
Thus  space  and  time  are  external  and  I,  as  a sensuous 
being,  am  myself  external,  spatial  and  temporal.  The 
sensuous  perceptions  I may  have  are  of  something  which 
is  external  even  to  itself.  The  animal  may  have  sensuous 
perceptions,  but  its  soul  does  not  have  its  soul,  its  own 
very  self,  for  object,  but  some  external  thing. 


PROPERTY. 


77 


§ 43. 

As  immediate  concept  and  thus  as  a single  individual, 
person  has  a natural  form  of  existence. 

This  physical  form  of  being  belongs  to  a person  partly  as 
an  independent  physical  organism  and  partly  through  his 
relation  to  his  body  as  an  external  thing.  We  are  here 
speaking  of  person  in  relation  to  immediate  forms  of  external 
existence,  his  body  among  others,  rather  than  in  his  relation 
to  them  as  developed  into  more  definite  things  through  the 
mediation  of  the  will.  . . . 


§ 44. 

As  a person,  I have  the  right  to  put  my  will  into  every- 
thing, which  thereby  becomes  mine.  The  thing  has  no 
substantial  end  of  its  own,  but  only  attains  this  quality  by 
being  related  to  my  will.  That  is,  mankind  has  the  right  of 
absolute  proprietorship. 

The  so-called  philosophy  which  ascribes  independent 
reality  to  immediate  individual  impersonal  things,  as  well 
as  that  philosophy  which  assures  us  that  the  spirit  cannot 
recognize  the  truth  or  know  what  the  thing  in  itself  is,  — all 
such  philosophy  is  immediately  refuted  by  the  conduct  of 
free  will  towards  these  things.  If,  perchance,  such  things 
have  for  sensuous  perception  and  representation  the  appear- 
ance of  independent  reality,  we  find  that  on  the  other  hand 
the  free  will  is  the  idealism,  the  real  truth  of  such  apparent 
reality. 

Supplement.  — All  things  are  capable  of  being  made  the 
property  of  man,  because  he  is  free-will  and  as  such  in  and 
for  himself,  while  everything  else  lacks  this  quality.  Every 
man,  therefore,  has  the  right  to  put  his  will  into  things,  that 
is,  to  annul  them  and  make  them  his  own.  For  they,  as 
external,  have  no  self-aim  ; they  are  not  that  infinite  refer- 
ence of  self  to  self,  as  subject,  but  are  even  externalities  to 


78 


ABSTRACT  RIGHT. 


themselves.  Every  living  thing  (the  animal)  is  such  an 
externality  and  thus  a thing.  Only  the  will  is  infinite,  abso- 
lute in  reference  to  all  else,  which  in  turn  is  only  relative. 
To  make  such  things  mine  is  really  only  to  manifest  the 
dignity  of  my  will  in  comparison  with  them,  and  to  demon- 
strate that  they  are  not  independent  and  do  not  have  any 
self-end.  This  manifestation  is  made  through  my  putting 
in  the  thing  another  end  than  that  which  it  immediately 
had.  I give  the  living  thing,  the  animal,  as  my  property, 
another  soul.  I give  it  my  soul.  Thus  the  free-will  is  the 
idealism  which  preserves  things,  but  not  as  they  are  imme- 
diately, while  realism  holds  them  as  being  in  and  of  them- 
selves absolute  and  real,  though  they  are  finite.  Animals 
themselves  do  not  have  this  realistic  philosophy  as  to  things. 
For  they  eat  things  up,  thereby  proving  that  they  are  not 
absolute  and  independent. 

§ 45. 

Possession  is  constituted  by  my  having  anything  merely 
within  my  own  external  power.  The  special  interest  in 
possession  comes  from  my  having  made  some  element  of 
natural  want,  desire  or  caprice  my  own.  The  side  of  this 
activity  of  possession,  which  brings  out  my  free  and  actual 
will,  is  the  positive  and  legal  side,  or  the  characteristic  of 
property. 

In  respect  to  want,  which  appears  as  the  primary  phase, 
property  seems  to  be  means.  But  the  true  position  from 
the  standpoint  of  freedom  is  that  which  regards  property 
in  its  first  definite  form,  as  essentially  an  end  for  freedom 
itself. 

§ 46. 

In  property  my  will  becomes  personal  to  me,  hence  objec- 
tive as  the  will  of  the  individual.  Thus  property  receives 
the  character  of  private  property  and  also  that  of  common 


PROPERTY. 


79 


property,  which  according  to  its  nature  can  be  possessed  as 
parcelled  out  among  many  individuals.  Here  we  have  the 
characteristic  of  a potentially  dissolvable  community  or 
partnership,  it  being  a matter  of  caprice  whether  or  not  I 
shall  let  my  portion  remain  in  the  common  property.  . . . 

Supplementary.  — In  saying  that  the  will  becomes  personal 
in  property,  it  is  to  be  noted  that  person  is  here  used  in  the 
sense  of  particular  being,  so  that  property  becomes  personal 
property.  As  I give  to  my  will  this  form  of  externality,  it 
is  essential  that  property  have  the  definite  character  of 
being  mine  in  particular.  This  is  the  important  doctrine 
of  the  necessity  of  private  property.  Any  restriction  made 
to  it  must  be  made  solely  by  the  State.  Frequently  indeed, 
especially  in  our  times,  private  property  has  been  restored 
by  the  State.  Many  States  have  rightly  enough  abolished 
cloisters,  because  ultimately  a community  has  no  such  right 
to  property  as  the  person. 


§ 47. 

As  person  I am  to  possess  my  own  life  and  body  as  I do 
other  things  just  in  so  far  as  I put  my  will  into  them.  . . . 
The  souls  of  the  animals  possess  their  bodies  indeed,  but 
they  have  no  right  to  their  life  because  they  do  not  put  their 
will  into  it. 

§ 48. 

The  body,  in  so  far  as  it  is  an  uncultivated  piece  of  exter- 
nal existence,  is  inadequate  to  the  spirit.  The  spirit  must « 
first  take  possession  of  it  in  order  to  make  it  its  animated 
tool.  But  in  reference  to  other  people  I am  essentially  free 
even  as  to  my  body.  ...  It  is  but  a vain  sophistry  which 
says  that  the  real  person, — -the  soul,  cannot  be  injured  by 
maltreatment  offered  to  one’s  body.  . . . Violence  done  to 
my  body  is  really  done  to  me. 


8o 


ABSTRACT  RIGHT. 


§ 49. 

It  is  the  rational  thing  then  for  me,  in  relation  to  external 
things,  to  possess  property.  But  the  particular  form  or 
amount  of  property  possessed  depends  upon  subjective 
aims,  needs,  caprice,  talents  and  external  circumstances. 
Moreover,  such  possession,  in  this  sphere  of  abstract  per- 
sonality, is  not  yet  explicitly  set  forth  as  identical  with 
freedom.  Hence  it  is  a matter  of  mere  legal  contingency 
as  to  the  kind  and  quantity  of  property  that  I possess. 

All  persons  are  equal  in  this  abstract  sphere,  if  indeed  we 
can  here  speak  of  many  persons.  This  is  but  a tautological 
proposition.  For  person  is  yet  abstract  and  unparticular- 
ized. Equality  is  identity  of  the  understanding.  This  is 
the  standpoint  first  taken  by  reflective  thought  and  medi- 
ocrity of  spirit,  when  the  relation  of  unity  and  difference 
first  occurs  to  it.  Here  then  we  have  only  the  abstract 
equality  of  abstract  persons.  Outside  of  this,  that  is,  in 
every  particular  form  of  possession,  there  is  really  inequality. 
The  demand  sometimes  made  for  an  equal  division  of  lands 
or  possessions  can  only  be  made  by  a very  superficial  under- 
standing. For  in  the  sphere  of  actual  particular  possessions 
there  falls  not  only  the  contingency  of  external  nature,  but 
also  the  whole  of  the  spiritual  nature  with  its  infinite  num- 
ber of  differences  and  its  developed  organic  form  of  reason. 
We  cannot  speak  of  an  injustice  of  nature  in  an  unequal 
partition  of  possessions  and  means,  for  nature  is  not  free 
and  so  neither  just  nor  unjust.  That  all  men  should  have 
a competency  for  their  needs  is  a well-meant  moral  desire, 
but  without  any  objective  reality.  Then,  too,  it  is  to  be 
noted  that  what  we  call  a competency  is  something  different 
from  possessions  and  belongs  to  the  later  stage,  Civil  Society. 

Supplementary.  — The  equality  which  one  might  introduce 
in  regard  to  the  partition  of  goods  would,  in  any  event,  be 
destroyed  in  a short  time,  since  property  depends  upon 


PROPERTY. 


81 


industry.  The  impossibility  of  such  an  equal  distribution 
should  prevent  all  attempts  to  secure  it.  . . . It  is  wrong 
to  maintain  that  justice  demands  that  each  one  should  have 
an  equal  amount  of  property.  For  the  demand  is  only  that 
each  should  have  property.  It  is  then  rather  true  that 
equality  of  possessions  would  be  unjust  in  the  sphere  of 
particularity,  which  is  the  sphere  of  inequality.  . . . 

§ 50. 

A thing  belongs  to  the  accidental  first  comer  who  gets  it, 
because  a second  comer  cannot  take  possession  of  what  is 
already  the  property  of  another.  The  first  comer  is  not 
legal  owner  by  virtue  of  his  being  the  first  comer,  but 
because  he  is  free  will.  He  becomes  first  comer  only  by 
the  accidental  fact  that  another  one  comes  after  him. 

§ 51. 

•H1  ■¥?  ^ 

Supplementary.  — The  primary  concept  of  property  is  that' 
one  puts  his  will  into  a thing.  The  fuller  concept  involves 
the  full  realization  of  the  idea  of  property.  It  is  necessary 
that  the  inner  act  of  will  by  which  I say  that  something  is 
mine,  be  made  cognizable  by  others.  In  really  making  a 
thing  my  own,  I give  it  the  power  of  manifesting  this  in 
external  form.  It  must  not  remain  mine  simply  in  my  inner 
will.  Children  sometimes  cry  out  against  others  taking  pos- 
session of  a thing,  that  they  had  wished  it  first.  But  such  j 
wishing  is  inadequate  for  grown-up  people.  The  form  of  ' 
subjectivity  must  be  worked  out  into  objectivity. 

§ 52. 

Taking  possession  of  the  material  of  a thing  makes  it  my 
property,  as  it  does  not  belong  to  itself.  . . . 


82 


ABSTRACT  RIGHT. 


§ 53. 

Property  has  its  proximate  characteristic  determinations 
in  the  relation  of  the  will  to  the  thing.  This  gives  us, 

(A)  Immediate  Possession  in  so  far  as  the  will  has  its 
objective  reality  in  the  thing  as  a positive  existence, 

(P)  Use  or  Consumption , i.  e.  in  so  far  as  the  will  has  its 
objective  reality  in  negating  the  thing  possessed, 

(C)  Relinquishment  of  property,  as  the  return  of  the  will 
into  itself  out  of  the  thing.  These  three  phases  are  the 
positive,  the  negative,  and  the  infinite  judgment  of  the  will 
in  relation  to  the  thing. 


A.  Possession. 

§ 54. 

Possession  arises  ( a ) partly  from  the  mere  corporeal  seizure 
of  a thing  ( 'b ) partly  from  the  expenditure  of  fo?'mative  work 
upon  it  and  (c)  partly  from  mere  designation , or  putting  the 
sign  of  ownership  upon  it. 

§ 55. 

■¥&  "X* 

(a)  Supplementary.  ■ — The  hand  is  the  chief  organ  of  cor- 
poreal possession.  This  no  beast  possesses.  And  what  I 
grasp  with  the  hand  becomes  in  turn  the  means  of  grasping 
more. 


§ 56. 

( b ) Through  the  expenditure  of  formative  work  upon  a 
thing  possessed,  it  comes  to  have  a sort  of  independent 
existence  and  ceases  to  be  limited  to  actual  present  cor- 
poreal seizure  as  the  condition  of  possession.  . . . 


PROPERTY. 


83 


§ 57. 

Man  is,  primarily,  a natural  sort  of  existence,  external  to 
his  essential  being.  It  is  only  through  the  culture  of  his 
body  and  spirit,  especially  through  the  apprehension  of  his 
freedom  through  self-consciousness,  that  he  takes  possession 
of  himself  and  becomes  his  own  owner.  This  act  may  also 
be  called  that  of  actualizing  his  concept  or  of  developing  his 
potentiality,  faculties,  talents.  Through  such  act  the  natural 
man  becomes  positively  his  own  and  truly  objective.  He 
is  thus  distinguished  from  simple  self-consciousness  and 
becomes  capable  of  maintaining  the  proper  form  of  man- 
hood. 

[In  the  remainder  of  this  paragraph  Hegel  shows  at  some 
length,  that  the  only  justification  that  can  be  offered  of 
slavery  and  of  mere  lordship  over  men  comes  from  con- 
sidering man  as  a merely  natural  form  of  existehce.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  absolute  wrong  of  slavery  can  only  be 
maintained  by  considering  man  as  he  is  ideally,  as  having 
all  his  potentialities  developed,  that  is,  as  free,  independ- 
ent, cultured  and  spiritual.  This,  too,  is  an  abstract  and 
one-sided  view,  identifying  immediately  the  merely  natural 
man  with  the  spiritual  man.  The  truth  is  that  man  by 
nature  (as  a mere  natural  being)  is  unfree,  and  that  man 
by  nature  (as  fully  developed  man)  is  free.  But  man  has 
such  a spiritual  nature,  not  in  the  state  of  nature  but  in 
the  state  of  an  ethical,  civilized  community.  The  blame 
of  slavery  really  lies  upon  the  will  of  the  enslaved  man  or 
people,  rather  than  upon  those  who  enslave  them.  The 
enslaved  has  not  said,  give  me  liberty  or  death,  but  rather, 
give  me  life  even  at  the  expense  of  liberty. 

Historically,  slavery  occurs  in  the  transition  from  the  state 
of  mere  nature  to  the  state  of  grace,  in  the  concrete  social 
relations  of  the  civilized  community.  It  occurs  in  that  stage 
of  human  development  where  a wrong  is  still  right.  At 


84 


ABSTRACT  RIGHT 


such  a stage,  the  wrong  is  of  real  worth  and  its  place  can  be 
justified.] 

§ 58. 

***** 

(i :)  Supplementary.  — Possession  by  means  of  designation 
or  sign  of  ownership  is  the  most'  perfect  form,  for  the  other 
kinds  of  it  have  more  or  less  the  effect  of  a sign.  When  I 
seize  or  when  I form  a thing,  the  ultimate  significance  is 
always  that  of  a sign  to  others  that  I put  my  will  in  the  thing 
so  as  to  exclude  their  possessing  it.  The  concept  of  a sign 
is  that  a thing  does  not  stand  for  what  it  is,  but  for  what  it 
signifies.  A cockade,  for  example,  signifies  citizenship  in  a 
state,  though  the  color  has  no  connection  whatever  with  the 
nation,  and  represents  not  itself  but  the  nation.  Man  shows 
his  sovereignty  over  things  by  being  able  to  give  a sign  and 
thus  acquire  possession. 

B.  Use  or  Consumption. 

§ 59. 

. . . Use  is  the  satisfaction  of  my  want  through  the  alter- 
ation, destruction,  or  consumption  of  the  thing,  the  selfless- 
ness of  whose  nature  is  thus  made  evident,  and  its  real 
destiny  accomplished.  . . . 

Supplementary.  — The  thing  is  reduced  to  a means  of 
satisfying  my  needs.  In  any  struggle  for  existence  between 
a person  and  a thing,  one  of  them  must  lose  its  own  being 
in  order  to  there  being  unity  ; but,  in  such  a conflict,  the  I 
is  the  vital,  willing,  the  real  affirmative,  while  the  thing  is 
merely  a thing.  It  must  perish  and  I preserve  myself,  such 
being  the  rational  prerogative  of  that  which  is  organic. 


PROPERTY. 


85 


§ 61. 

***** 

Supplementary.  — The  relation  of  use  to  property  is  that  of 
substance  to  quality,  of  potential  to  actual  power.  The  field 
is  only  a field  in  so  far  as  it  produces  a harvest.  He  who 
has  the  whole  use  of  a field  is  the  real  owner,  and  it  is  an 
empty  abstraction  to  recognize  any  other  property  in  it. 

§ 62. 

Partial,  or  temporary  use,  or  possession  of  a thing  is, 
however,  to  be  distinguished  from  ownership.  It  is  only 
the  complete  and  permanent  use  of  a thing  that  constitutes 
me  owner  of  that  whose  abstract  title  may  belong  to  another. 
Only  so  far  as  I permeate  the  thing  throughout  with  my 
will,  thus  making  it  impermeable  by  others,  is  it  truly  mine. 
It  is  thus  the  essential  nature  of  proprietorship  that  it  be 
free  and  complete.  . . . 

It  is  more  than  fifteen  hundred  years  since,  under  the 
influence  of  Christianity,  personal  freedom  began  to  flourish, 
and  became,  at  least  for  a small  part  of  the  human  race, 
recognized  as  a universal  principle.  But  the  freedom  of 
ownership  has  only  since  yesterday,  we  may  say,  been  recog- 
nized here  and  there  as  a principle.  This  is  an  example 
from  universal  history  of  the  length  of  time  required  by 
Spirit  for  its  advance  into  self-consciousness;  also,  an  illus- 
tration against  the  impatience  of  mere  opinion. 

§ 63. 

***** 

Supple7nent.  — We  find,  however,  that  the  qualitative  form 
of  use  passes  over  into  the  quantitative.  . . . This  last 
takes  the  form  of  value.  . . . Money  is  the  abstract  form 


86 


ABSTRACT  RIGHT. 


of  value.  Gold  represents  everything  except  the  human 
wants  ; hence,  it  is  itself  ruled  by  the  conception  of  specific 
value.  A man  can,  in  a way,  be  the  owner  of  a thing 
without  being  the  possessor  of  its  real  worth.  A family 
which  has  possessions  which  it  can  neither  sell  nor  spend, 
is  not  owner  of  its  worth. 


§ 64. 

Giving  form,  and  putting  one’s  mark  upon  a thing,  are, 
however,  external  circumstances,  needing  continually  the 
presence  of  the  active  subjective  will  to  give  them  meaning 
and  value.  This  presence  is  manifested  through  Use  and 
Consumption,  which  must  be  continuous  to  avail.  Without 
this  active  presence  of  will  in  them,  things  are  deserted,  — 
become  masterless  ; hence,  property  may  be  lost  or  acquired 
by  prescription.  . . . Prescription  is  founded  upon  the  very 
character  of  property,  namely,  upon  the  actual  manifestation 
of  the  will  to  possess  something.  Public  monuments  are 
national  property,  so  long  as  they  are  of  worth  through  the 
indwelling  soul  of  national  honor  and  traditions.  Deprived 
of  this  national  spirit,  they  become  masterless,  and  are  thus 
the  fair  booty  of  any  individual  who  chooses  to  take  them, 
e.g.,  the  Grecian  and  Egyptian  works  of  art  in  Turkey.  So, 
too,  the  extinction  of  copyright  in  the  family  of  an  author 
rests  upon  the  same  principle.  Literary  works  become 
masterless  (though  in  just  the  opposite  way),  like  national 
monuments  ; that  is,  they  become  universal  property  as  to 
their  worth,  instead  of  being  private  property.  So,  the 
mere  land  of  unused  cemeteries,  or  that  which  is  otherwise 
consecrated  to  eternal  non-use,  implies  merely  a non- 
present, arbitrary  will,  through  the  infringement  of  which 
no  real  interest  is  injured.  Sacred  respect  for  all  such 
ünused  land  cannot  be  guaranteed. 


PROPERTY. 


87 


C.  The  Relinquishment  of  Property. 

§65. 

I can  relinquish  my  property,  because  it  is  mine  only  so 
far  as  I put  my  will  into  it.  I can  give  up  ( derelinquere ) my 
lordship  over  anything  that  is  mine,  or  I can  deliver  it  over 
to  another  will  for  possession.  But  this  refers  only  to  such 
things  as  are  by  their  very  nature  external. 

Supplementary.  — Such  a true  alienation  is  a direct  decla- 
ration of  the  will,  in  contrast  with  alienation  by  prescription. 
In  fact,  when  the  whole  process  of  property  is  looked  at,  we 
see  its  relinquishment  to  be  a genuine  act  of  taking  pos- 
session. The  first  phase  of  property  is  the  immediate 
taking  possession  of  a thing.  Then  further  ownership 
is  acquired  through  use,  while  taking  possession  through 
the  voluntary  relinquishment  of  ownership  is  the  last  and 
fullest  sort  of  ownership. 

Resume  of  § 66-§  71. 

In  these  paragraphs  Hegel  makes  the  needed  restrictions 
to  the  above  doctrine.  There  are  some  sorts  of  possessions 
which  by  their  very  nature  are  inalienable.  Those  which 
constitute  the  very  essence  of  my  personality,  such  as  my 
free-will,  my  ethical  life  and  religious  convictions,  are  thus 
inalienable.  To  relinquish  them  is  to  give  up  being  a free 
self-cause,  or  causa  sui,  cujus  natura  non  potest  concipi , nisi 
existens.  There  is,  however,  a possibility  of  such  suicidal 
action  that  is  frequently  actualized.  The  bad  is  itself  either 
a denying  and  giving  up  the  essentials  of  personality,  or  it  is 
the  making  actual  something  which  does  not  belong  to  the 
very  inner  essence  of  personality — a realization  by  man  of 
the  un-manly,  the  non- human  or  .sv^-human.  Slavery  is  an 
example  of  one  sort  of  such  suicide.  Superstition  affords 
corresponding  examples  in  the  moral,  ethical  and  religious 


88 


ABSTRACT  RIGHT. 


spheres.  Intelligent  rationality  as  to  duties  and  dogmas  is 
here  sacrificed  to  the  arbitrary  authority  of  others.  Rights 
as  such  are  inalienable.  Hence  any  one  who  has  in  any  way 
lost  his  rights  has  the  inalienable  right  and  duty  to  resume 
them  at  the  first  possible  opportunity.  The  slave,  whether 
civil  or  religious,  has  always  the  right  to  violate  the  wrong 
right  of  his  tyrant. 

I may  part  with  the  productions  of  my  hand  or  head,  with 
my  daily  labor  of  brawn  or  brain,  without  doing  violence  to 
my  personality,  for  such  labor  does  not  consume  the  whole 
of  my  self-activity.  Herein  lies  the  difference  between  the 
slave  and  the  day-laborer,  even  though  the  toil  of  the  latter 
be  greater  and  his  bodily  comfort  less  than  those  of  the 
former. 

Again,  one’s  life  cannot  be  considered  as  external  to  per- 
sonality and,  hence,  cannot  be  relinquished.  I,  as  an  individ- 
ual, in  the  sphere  of  mere  abstract  right,  have  no  right  to 
lay  down  my  life.  It  is  only  when  a person  is  a member  of 
an  ethical  community  that  he  has  the  right  to  offer  up  his  life 
at  its  command  and  in  its  service.  Suicide  may  perhaps  be 
looked  upon  as  bravery,  but  it  is  only  the  poor  sort  of  brav- 
ery of  tailors  and  girls. 

Property  as  an  external  thing  is  in  connection  with  other ' 
externalities  or  properties.  But  as  the  principle  of  property 
is  will,  this  relation  of  property  to  property  is  that  of  will  to 
will.  As  proprietor  my  will  enters  a circle  of  common  will. 
Thus  property  becomes  mediated  by  this  relation  to  othei 
wills.  It  is  no  longer  merely  a matter  of  my  own  subjective 
will  in  relation  to  an  external  thing.  This  is  the  sphere  of 
Contract.  In  property  the  relation  is  that  of  a single  will,  in 
contract  it  is  that  of  several  wills,  of  a common , though  not  of 
the  universal,  will  of  an  ethical  community. 


CONTRACT. 


89 


SECOND  SECTION. 

Contract. 

r 

§ 72. 

Property,  even  as  an  external  form  of  existence,  is  merely 
a thing.  As  property,  the  thing  has  been  permeated  by  hu- 
man will.  In  contract,  we  have  the  process  which  represents 
and  resolves  the  contradiction  that  I am  and  remain  inde- 
pendent exclusive  proprietor,  so  far  as  I,  in  a will  identical 
with  the  other  will,  cease  to  be  proprietor. 

§ 73. 

I can  alienate  property  not  only  as  an  external  thing,  but 
it  also  belongs  to  its  very  concept  that  I dispose  of  it  as 
property,  in  order  that  my  will  stand  over  against  me  as 
some  definite  objective  affair.  But  my  will,  as  thus  parted 
with,  is  another  will.  This  process,  accordingly,  wherein  that 
necessity  of  the  concept  is  real,  is  the  unity  of  different  wills, 
in  which  their  differences  and  peculiarities  are  annulled. 
But  in  this  identity  of  will  there  is,  at  this  stage,  implied 
that  each  will,  as  not  identical  with  the  other,  is  and  remains 
explicitly  particular  will. 


§ 75. 

As  both  of  the  contracting  parties  are  related  to  each 
other  as  independent  persons,  we  have 

(a)  Contract  proceeding  from  the  arbitrary  choice  of  the 
parties. 

( ß ) The  common  will  expressed  in  the  contract  is  only 
common  and  not  a genuine  universal. 

(y)  The  subject  matter  of  contract  is  only  a particular 
external  thing,  as  only  such  can  be  relinquished  at  the 
arbitrary  choice  of  the  individual. 


go 


ABSTRACT  RIGHT. 


[Hegel  stops  here  to  declaim  against  the  subsumption  of 
marriage  under  the  concept  of  contract.  He  says  that  such 
a reference  of  marriage  as  was  made  by  Kant  should  be 
stigmatized  as  scandalous.  Just  as  little  can  the  nature  of 
the  State  be  treated  as  that  of  a contract  of  all  citizens  with 
each  other  or  with  their  rulers.  It  is  rather  the  natural  and 
universal  heritage  into  which  men  are  born.  It  is  far  more 
truly  a universal  will  than  the  common  will  that  appears  in 
contract.  Like  the  family,  it  exists  not  by  contract  but  by 
the  grace  of  God,  springing  from  the  ideal  nature  of  man  as 
seen  by  the  Divine  Idea.  Into  both  of  these  ethical  spheres 
we  all  are  born  without  making  any  contract  in  regard  to 
them.  We  can  neither  enter  nor  leave  the  State  at  will.  It 
is  the  universal  will  in  which  we  exist.  It  is  the  rational 
destiny  of  man  to  live  in  the  State. 

Hegel  further  maintains  the  contract  sphere  to  be  a 
more  concrete  phase  of  right  than  that  of  property,  when 
considered  as  based  simply  upon  the  relation  of  one’s  own 
individual  will  to  things.  Property  held  by  contract,  by 
common  consent,  is  much  more  real  and  secure.  It  is  not 
till  what  I have  put  my  will  into  is  recognized  and  allowed 
by  other  wills  to  be  mine,  that  it  can  be  held  as  property. 
In  real  contract  as  distinguished  from  formal  contract,  each 
one,  through  a common  will,  gives  up,  and  at  the  same  time 
retains  and  obtains  possessions.  Thus  after  contract,  each 
one  of  the  contracting  parties,  after  having  severally  given 
up  pieces  of  property,  emerges  with  possession  yet  of  the 
value  of  what  they  parted  with.  Hence,  he  maintains,  a 
laesio  enormis  cancels  the  obligation  of  a contract. 

Contract  is  given  definite  form  through  stipulation.  For- 
malities are  necessary  for  the  conversion  of  subjectivity  into 
objectivity.  Though  the  tendency  may  be  for  them  to  grow 
simpler,  we  shall  always  need  some  kind  of  formalities,  as 
the  speech  for  uttering  or  making  outward  and  visible  the 
thoughts  and  intents  of  men  in  mutual  relations.  Stipula- 


WRONG. 


9 1 


tion  applies  only  to  what  is  of  substantial  value.  A contract 
is  more  than  a promise.  A promise  is  guaranteed  only  by 
a capricious  subjective  will  which  promises  and  may  then 
refuse  to  fulfil  its  promise.  But  the  stipulation  in  a contract: 
is  a guard  against  such  capricious  willing.  On  the  other 
hand  contract  is  an  affair  of  legal  rather  than  of  moral  right. 
The  secret  intentions,  the  moral  disposition  in  the  contract- 
ing parties  are  not  taken  into  consideration  at  this  stage. 
Contract  has  to  do  with  legal  rather  than  with  moral  rights. 

The  common  will  of  the  several  particular  persons  in 
contract,  is  still  far  from  being  the  universal  will  as  Idea. 
It  is  still  limited  and  contingent.  Hence  it  is  more  than 
liable  to  conflict  with  true,  universal  will.  Such  collision 
constitutes  Wrong  ( das  Unrecht ).] 


THIRD  SECTION. 

Wrong. 

§ 82. 

Potential  right  comes,  through  contract , to  have  posi- 
tive form.  Its  inner  universality  thus  takes  the  form 
of  something  held  in  common  by  caprice  and  by  par- 
ticular will.  This  may  be  termed  the  phenomenal  appear- 
ance of  right.  Here  the  right  and  its  essential  determinate 
being  (the  particular  will)  accidentally  agree.  This  phe- 
nomenal appearance  of  rights  is  continued,  as  a semidance , in 
Wrong.  In  wrong  we  have  the  opposition  between  implicit 
rights  and  the  particular  will  through  which  they  come  to  be 
any  particular  sort  of  rights.  The  truth  of  this  semblance, 
however,  is  that  such  manifestation  of  will  is  naught  and 
that  the  right  reconstructs  itself  through  the  negation  of 
this  negation  of  itself.  Through  this  negation  of  the  wrong, 
the  right  returns  to  itself  and  characterizes  itself  as  some- 


92 


ABSTRACT  RIGHT. 


thing  real  and  valid,  whereas  it  was  primarily  only  some- 
thing potential  and  immediate. 

Supplementary.  — Universal  will,  when  essentially  deter- 
mined by  particular  will,  is  in  a relation  with  an  unessential, 
a relation  of  essence  to  its  appearance,  which  can  never 
adequately  represent  it.  In  wrong  we  have  the  semblance 
of  the  right.  Semblance  is  inadequate  character  of  exist- 
ence, inadequate  to  the  essence,  and,  though  it  asserts  its 
independent  validity,  it  vanishes  through  the  energizing  of 
the  essence  against  it.  The  right,  in  thus  manifesting  the 
unreality  of  the  semblance,  receives  the  definite  character  of 
that  which  is  firm  and  valid.  Right  thus  becomes  actual. 
For  Actuality  is  that  which  energizes  and  maintains  itself 
even  in  and  through  its  opponent. 

§ 83. 

Right  (which,  as  a particular  and  consequently  a vary- 
ing thing,  in  relation  to  its  own  implicit  universality  and 
simplicity,  receives  the  form  of  a semblance),  is  such  a 
semblance  partly  in  and  of  itself  ; partly  it  becomes  a 
semblance  through  the  subject  or  doer  as  a semblance, 
and  partly  it  is  posited  as  absolutely  naught,  i.  e.,  Uninten- 
tional or  Civil  Wrong,  Fraud  and  Crime. 

Supplementary. — . . . The  difference  between  fraud 
and  crime  is  that  the  former  still  respects  the  form  of  right 
while  the  latter  does  not. 

A.  Unintentmial  Wrong. 

§ 84. 

Occupancy  and  contract  in  all  their  special  forms,  being 
primarily  different  manifestations  and  consequences  of  my 
will  as  such,  are,  in  respect  to  the  recognition  of  others, 
legal  claims,  because  the  will  is  implicitly  universal.  It  is 


WRONG. 


93 


only  as  concerns  their  variety  and  their  external  manifesta- 
tion towards  each  other,  that  the  one  and  same  thing  can 
belong  only  to  different  persons,  each  of  whom  considers 
the  thing  to  belong  to  him,  from  some  particular  legal 
reason.  Thus  collisions  of  legal  rights  arise. 

§ 85. 

Such  a collision,  in  which  the  thing  is  claimed  for  a par- 
ticular legal  reason,  and  which  constitutes  the  sphere  of 
civil  lawsuits,  contains  the  acknowledgment  of  right  as  uni- 
versal and  decisive.  Thus  all  parties  hold  that  the  thing 
should  belong  to  the  one  who  has  the  legal  right  to  it. 
The  contest  is  only  in  regard  to  the  subsumption  of  the 
thing  under  the  property  of  the  one  or  of  the  other.  This 
is  a merely  negative  judgment,  in  which  only  the  particular 
as  to  what  is  mine  or  thine  is  negated.  . 

§“86. 

•TV“  “TV*  'A'  "TV- 

Supplementary.  — What  is  implicitly  right  has  a definite 
ground,  and  my  wrong  which  I deem  to  be  right  I also 
defend  on  some  definite  ground.  It  is  the  nature  of  the 
finite  and  particular  to  give  room  to  contingencies.  Conse- 
quently collisions  must  take  place  here,  for  we  are  here  on 
the  stage  of  the  finite.  The  first  form  of  wrong  (the 
unintentional)  negates  only  the  particular  will,  while  the 
general  right  is  respected.  Hence,  it  is  the  slightest  form 
of  wrong.  When  I say  that  a rose  is  not  red,  I still 
acknowledge  that  it  has  color.  I do  not  deny  the  species, 
but  only  deny  the  particular  color,  red.  Just  so  is  right 
here  recognized.  Each  one  wants  the  right,  and  desires 
only  what  is  right.  The  wrong  consists  only  in  each  person 
holding  for  right  what  he  wishes. 


94 


ABSTRACT  RIGHT. 


B.  Fraud. 

§ 87. 

^ -AT, 

Tv  TV"  Tv  Tv  '7V' 

Supplementary.  — In  fraud,  the  second  stage  of  wrong, 
the  particular  will  is  respected,  but  not  the  universal  right. 
In  fraud,  the  particular  will  is  not  injured,  because  the 
person  deceived  is  made  to  believe  that  he  is  being  fairly 
treated.  That  which  constitutes  fraud  is  the  demanding 
as  one’s  right  that  which  is  only  a subjective  and  simulated 
right. 

§ 88. 

In  contract,  I acquire  property  for  the  sake  of  some 
particular  quality  of  the  thing,  and  at  the  same  time  in 
accordance  with  its  inner  universality,  partly  according  to 
its  value,  partly  as*  out  of  the  property  of  another  person. 
Through  the  arbitrariness  of  the  vendor  a false  semblance 
can  be  produced  in  my  mind  so  that  the  contract  is  formally 
right,  while  it  really  lacks  the  implicit  universality  of  the 
right. 

§ 89. 

Supplementary.  — There  is  no  punishment  prescribed  for 
unintentional  or  civil  wrong,  for  in  this  there  is  no  evil 
intentions  against  the  right  as  such. 

Punishment,  however,  comes  with  fraud,  for  here  it  is 
that  right,  as  such,  is  injured. 

C.  Violence  and  Crime. 

§ 90. 

My  will  being  projected  into  an  external  thing  is  thereby 
just  so  far  seized  and  placed  under  necessity.  My  will  can 


WRONG. 


95 


thus  partly  suffer  violence  in  general,  partly  violence  can  be 
done  to  it  by  my  being  forced  to  do  something  or  to  make 
sacrifice  as  the  condition  of  keeping  my  property  or  life. 
That  is,  my  will  can  be  coerced. 

Supplementary.  — Wrong  proper  is  crime  where  neither 
the  right,  as  such,  nor  as  it  appears  to  me  is  respected,  where 
consequently  both  the  subjective  and  objective  sides  are 
violated. 

§ 91. 

As  a living  creature  man  can,  indeed,  be  coerced,  that  is, 
his  physical  and  otherwise  external  side  can  be  brought 
under  the  power  of  others,  but  the  free-will  as  such  cannot 
be  coerced  except  in  so  far  as  it  fail  to  withdraw  itself  out 
of  the  externality  to  which  it  has  bonded  itself  in  property. 
Only  he  can  be  coerced  who  allows  himself  to  be  coerced. 

§ 93. 

Violence  must  be  annulled  by  violence.  This  is  involved 
in  the  concept  of  violence,  as  being  self-destructive.  It  is 
therefore  not  only  conditionally  legal,  but  morally  necessary 
— a second  coercion  which  is  the  abrogation  of  the  first 
coercion. 

Violation  of  a contract  by  the  failure  to  comply  with  the 
stipulation,  or  with  the  legal  duties  towards  family  or  state, 
is  a first  coercion,  or  at  least  violence,  so  far  as  I take  away 
a property  which  belongs  to  another,  or  fail  to  give  him  his 
just  dues.  Pedagogical  coercion  and  coercion  used  against 
savagery  and  barbarianism  do  not  at  first  seem  to  be  the 
negation  of  a prior  violence'.  But  the  merely  natural  will  is 
itself  implicit  violence  against  the  inherent  Idea  of  freedom, 
which  is  to  be  protected  and  enforced  against  such  wild 
will.  Either  there  is  already  an  existing  ethical  condition 
in  family  or  state,  against  which  all  such  barbarian  natural- 
ness is  violence  or  there  is  a mere  state  of  nature,  a state  of 


96 


ABSTRACT  RIGHT. 


violence  in  general.  In  this  way  the  Idea , in  opposition 
to  this  condition,  brings  about  despotism. 

Supplementary.  — There  can  no  longer  be  heroes  in  the 
State.  These  appear  only  in  rude  and  primitive  conditions. 
The  purpose  of  such  is  a legal,  necessary  and  political  one, 
and  this  purpose  they  accomplish  as  their  own  private 
affair.  The  heroes  who  founded  states,  introduced  marriage 
and  agriculture,  have,  indeed,  not  done  so  as  a recognized 
right,  and  these  institutions  still  appear  as  matters  of  their 
own  capricious  choice.  Still,  in  reference  to  the  higher 
right  of  • the  Idea  against  barbarianism,  this  coercion  by 
heroes  is  a legal  one,  for  but  little  can  be  accomplished 
against  savage  violence  by  mere  kindness. 

§ 94. 

Abstract  right  is  a right  of  compulsion,  because  the  wrong 
against  it  is  a force  against  the  determinate  being  of  my 
freedom  in  an  external  thing.  . . . 

Supplementary.  — Here  we  may  note  the  difference  of  the 
moral  from  the  legal.  In  the  moral,  in  the  reflexion  into 
self,  there  are  two  elements, — first,  the  good  is  my  aim,  and 
I must  determine  myself  in  accordance  with  this  Idea.  My 
resolution  embraces  the  determinate  being  of  the  good,  and 
I actualize  it  in  myself.  But  this  is  entirely  internal.  Hence 
there  can  be  no  compulsion  against  this  form  of  right.  The 
laws  of  a State,  consequently,  cannot  wish  to  extend  over  the 
disposition  of  its  people.  For  in  the  moral,  the  person  is 
for  himself,  and  compulsion  would  here  be  without  sense. 

§ 95. 

The  first  compulsion  exercised  by  the  free  person,  as  vio- 
lence, which  violates  the  very  character  of  freedom  in  its 
concrete  sense, — that  is,  violates  right  as  right  — this  is 
crime  . . . which  negates  the  very  capacity  of  right.  . . 


WRONG. 


97 


Perjury,  high  treason,  counterfeiting,  forging  notes  are  the 
subject-matter  of  Penal  Law.  . . . 

§ 96. 

* * * * * 

Supplementary.  — We  cannot  decide  in  just  what  way  each 
and  every  crime  is  to  be  punished  merely  by  abstract  reason, 
but  this  must  be  left  to  positive  laws.  The  estimation  of 
crime  grows  milder  with  the  progress  of  culture.  To-day 
crime  is  much  less  severely  punished  than  a hundred  years 
ago.  It  is,  however,  the  relation  between  crime  and  punish- 
ment that  has  changed. 


§ 97. 

Violation  of  right  as  such  is,  indeed,  a positive  external 
affair,  though  naught  in  itself.  The  making  its  nullity  mani- 
fest is  the  same  as  the  nullification  of  that  violation  in  its 
own  external  form.  This  brings  out  the  actuality  of  right, — - 
its  form  of  necessity  as  mediated  by  the  destruction  of  its 
violation. 

Supplementary.  — A crime  changes  the  form  of  existence  of 
that  which  it  violates.  This  changed  form  is  the  opposite  of 
itself  and  hence  null.  Its  nullity  consists  in  its  abrogation 
of  the  right  as  right.  The  right  as  absolute  is  indestructible. 
Therefore  this  external  manifestation  of  the  crime  is  itself 
null,  and  this  nullity  is  the  very  nature  of  the  effect  of  the 
crime.  But  what  is  null  must  manifest  itself  as  violable. 
The  criminal  act  is  not  a prior,  definite  affair  to  which  pun- 
ishment is  a secondary  and  negative  thing.  But  the  crime 
itself  is  the  negative,  so  that  the  punishment  is  only  the  ne- 
gation of  this  negation.  The  actual  right  is  now  the  abroga- 
tion of  this  violation.  It  thus  manifests  its  validity  and  pre- 
serves itself  as  a definite  form  of  mediated  and  necessary 
existence. 


98 


ABSTRACT  RIGHT. 


§ 98. 

Violence  committed  only  against  external  possessions  is 
an  evil  ( Uebcl ),  and  consists  in  damage  done  to  any  sort 
of  property.  The  abrogation  of  the  violation  through 
counter-violence  is  the  form  of  civil  satisfaction  or  repara- 
tion, so  far  as  this  is  possible.  . . . 

§ 99. 

. . . Crime  has  definite  existence  only  in  the  particular 
will  of  the  criminal.  Offering  violence  to  this  will  is  the  an- 
nulling of  the  crime  (which  otherwise  would  maintain  its  own 
validity)  and  the  restoration  of  the  right. 

[Hegel  here  makes  some  strictures  upon  various  theories  of 
punishment.  Punishment  being  an  evil,  some  maintain  that 
it  is  folly  to  commit  one  evil  because  of  a previous  evil  (the 
crime).  It  is  this  superficial  view  of  crime  as  a mere  evil, 
that  is  at  the  basis  of  those  theories  which  admit  punishment 
only  so  far  as  it  tends  to  protect  society  by  intimidating  or 
reforming  criminals.  But  crime  is  not  a mere  evil.  It  vio- 
lates justice  itself,  and  these  theories  deal  rather  with  extrin- 
sic considerations  of  psychological  and  sentimental  charac- 
ter, and  miss  the  essence  of  the  matter,  that  punishment 
is  intrinsically  just  — both  to  society  and  to  the  criminal 
himself.  Here  the  essential  point  is  that  crime,  not  merely 
as  an  evil,  but  as  a violation  of  right  as  such,  is  to  be  ne- 
gated. We  must  see  the  real  nature  that  belongs  to  crime. 
The  chief  question  is  as  to  the  essence  of  crime  ; this  is  the 
thing  to  be  negated  by  punishment.  Confusion  in  views  of 
punishment  cannot  be  avoided  as  long  as  the  essence  of 
crime  is  undetermined. 

The  true  view  of  punishment  treats  the  criminal  as  a 
man.  The  theory  of  mere  intimidation  does  not.  It  rather 
treats  him  like  a dog,  whom  we  may  deter  from  biting  again 
by  flourishing  a stick  at  him.  It  sets  aside  both  the  con- 


WRONG. 


99 


sideration  of  the  criminal’s  free-will  and  the  nature  of 
justice,  whereas  the  true  theory  honors  the  man  in  the 
criminal  in  manifesting  and  vindicating  the  absoluteness  of 
justice.] 

§ 100. 

The  injury  done  the  criminal  is  not  only  just,  per  se,  but 
also  as  being  the  implicit  will  of  the  criminal  — a definite 
form  of  his  own  freedom.  In  other  words  his  punishment  is 
his  right.  Punishment  is  really  a right  to  the  criminal  him- 
self. That  is,  it  is  really  contained  as  an  element  in  his 
definitely  acting  will.  For  his  action,  being  that  of  a 
rational  being,  implies  that  it  is  something  universal  and 
thus  legislative.  Thus  he  implicitly  recognizes  his  rational 
action  as  giving  the  law  in  accordance  with  which  his  own 
right  can  be  determined. 

Beccaria  denies  to  the  State  the  right  of  the  death  penalty 
on  the  ground  that  it  cannot  be  presupposed  that  the  Social 
Compact  contained  the  consent  of  individuals  to  their  own 
death.  But  really  the  criminal  does  give  his  consent  to  it  by 
his  very  deed.  The  nature  of  the  crime,  as  well  as  the 
crimipal’s  own  will,  demands  that  the  violation  should  be 
abrogated.  But  Beccaria’s  theory  did  some  good  in  mini- 
mizing the  death-penalty,  limiting  it  to  crimes  inherently 
worthy  of  it.  . . . 

§ 102. 

The  abrogation  of  crime  in  this  sphere  of  abstract  right, 
(that  is  of  right  not  yet  mediated  by  ethical  relations)  takes 
primarily  the  form  of  revenge,  which  is  justified  as  to  its 
substance  in  so  far  as  it  is  retaliation.  But  as  to  the  form 
of  such  punishment,  revenge  is  the  deed  of  a mere  subjective 
arbitrary  will.  Such  a will,  we  have  seen,  has  the  power  to 
place  its  own  infinite  law  upon  every  sort  of  accomplished 
violation.  Hence  its  justice  is  capricious.  As  regards 
other  persons,  it  never  passes  beyond  the  scope  of  the 


100 


ABSTRACT  RIGHT. 


arbitrary  will  of  the  individual  avenger.  Thus  revenge  is 
only  a new  violation.  Thus  revenge  provokes  revenge  ad 
infinitum , and  family  feuds  are  transmitted  from  generation 
to  generation. 

Supplementary.  — In  a state  of  society  where  there  are 
neither  judges  nor  law,  punishment  always  takes  the  form 
of  revenge,  and  this  remains  defective  in  so  far  as  it  is  the 
deed  of  a subjective  will  and,  consequently,  not  in  accordance 
with  the  real  substance  of  the  case.  Judges  are  also  per- 
sons, but  they  represent  the  universal  will  of  the  law,  and  it 
is  not  their  intention  to  put  anything  into  the  punishment 
which  is  not  in  accordance  with  the  nature  of  the  case.  . . . 
Among  uncivilized  peoples  revenge  is  everlasting,  as  among 
the  Arabians,  where  it  can  only  be  suppressed  by  a higher 
power  or  by  the  impossibility  of  indulging  in  it.  Indeed  we, 
to-day,  still  have  a remnant  of  revenge,  inasmuch  as  it  is  left 
to  the  discretion  of  individuals  to  bring  violations  before  the 
tribunal  or  not. 

§ 103. 

The  demand  for  the  solution  of  this  contradiction,  which 
exists  here  as  to  the  kind  and  manner  of  the  abrogation  of 
wrong,  is  the  demand  for  a justice  free  from  subj'ective 
interests  and  form,  as  well  as  from  the  capriciousness  of 
mere  power,  — that  is,  for  a justice  which  is  not  merely  an 
avenging  but  a punishing  justice.  This  implies  primarily 
the  demand  for  a particular  subjective  will,  which,  however, 
wills  the  universal  as  such.  But  this  is  the  very  concept  of 
morality  (Moralität').  It  is  not  only  something  demanded, 
but  something  that  has  emanated  from  this  very  process. 

Transition  from  Right  into  Morality. 

§ 104. 

Crime  and  avenging  justice  represent  the  development  of 
the  will  into  consciousness  of  the  opposition  within  it  of 


WRONG. 


IOI 


the  implicitly  universal  with  the  actually  partial  and  special 
elements.  They  also  lead  to  the  stage  in  which  the  will, 
annulling  this  opposition,  turns  back  into  itself,  being  there- 
by developed  and  actualized.  The  right  is  thus  preserved 
and  its  universal  nature  maintained,  as  against  particular 
external  forms.  In  negating  its  own  particular,  and  there- 
fore negative  form,  it  realizes  itself  more  fully.  It  becomes 
independent,  its  negative  activity  being  but  a form  of  its 
own  self-characterization. 

In  the  sphere  of  abstract  right  will  has  been  defined  as 
abstract  personality,  as  opposed  to  things  and  to  other 
persons.  It  has  now  its  own  personality  as  its  only  object. 
This  indefinite  explicit  subjectivity  constitutes  the  prin- 
ciple of  the  moral  ( moralischen ) standpoint. 

In  property  we  find  the  specific  character  of  the  will  to  re- 
side in  the  abstract  meum , that  is,  in  an  external  thing.  In 
contract  the  property  of  the  single  will  is  mediated  by  the 
common  will  of  several  persons.  In  wrong  we  see  the  con- 
tingency of  this  common  will  being  made  manifest,  while  in 
the  moral  standpoint  all  contingency  is  potentially  overcome. 
This  is  the  sphere  of  reflective  thought,  the  internal  forum  of 
conscience.  All  contingency  is  reflected  back  into  the  implicit 
identity  of  the  will  with  itself,  which  constitutes  its  true 
subjectivity. 

Truth  demands  the  veritable  existence  of  the  concept  and 
the  correspondence  of  its  content  with  this  its  true  form.  In 
rights,  the  will  has  its  existence  in  an  external  thing.  The 
next  demand  of  the  concept  of  the  will  is  that  it  have  it 
internally,  within  itself.  It  must  be  self-reflected  and  have 
itself  as  its  object.  This  affirmative  relation  to  itself  can 
only  be  attained  through  the  annulment  of  its  immediacy. 
This  is  accomplished  in  the  punishment  of  crime,  leading 
through  its  own  negation  of  its  own  negation  to  affirmation 
— to  Morality  ( Moralität ). 


SECOND  PART. 


MORALITY. 

§ 105. 

The  moral  standpoint  is  that  of  the  will  in  so  far  as  it  is 
infinite,  not  merely  in  an  abstract  and  potential  form,  but 
as  actually  thus  infinite  for  itself.  This  reflexion  of  the 
will  into  itself  and  its  independent  identity,  as  opposed  to 
merely  implicit  being,  and  the  immediacy  and  the  self- 
developing  determinations  in  this  latter,  constitutes  the 
person  a subject} 

§ 106. 

Since  subjectivity  now  constitutes  the  characteristic  of 
the  concept , and  is  different  from  the  concept  in  the  form  of 
implicitly  existent  will,  and,  indeed,  as  subjectivity  is  at 
the  same  time  the  will  of  the  subject  as  an  independent 
individual  which  still  contains  the  element  of  immediacy, 
it  constitutes  the  determinate  being  of  the  concept.  Thus 
subjectivity  gives  a higher  basis  for  freedom.  In  reference 
to  the  Idea , the  subjectivity  of  the  will  forms  the  side  of 
existence,  its  phase  of  reality.  Freedom,  or  the  potential 
will,  can  actually  exist  only  in  subjective  will. 

This  second  sphere,  that  of  morality,  represents,  therefore, 
on  the  whole  .the  real  side  of  the  concept  of  freedom  ; and 
the  process  in  this  sphere  is  that  of  annulling  the  will  which 
is  at  first  existing  only  for  self,  and  which  is  immediately 
only  implicitly  identical  with  the  potentially  existing  univer- 
sal will,  according  to  that  difference  in  which  it  becomes 
profoundly  self-involved.  The  process  also  includes  that 
of  positing  the  will  existing  for  itself,  as  identical  with  the 


1 Cf.  p.  73,  foot-note. 


104 


MORALITY. 


potentially  existing  will.  This  process  is  accordingly  the 
elaboration  of  this  present  basis  of  freedom  (of  that  sub- 
jectivity which  is  at  first  abstract,  that  is  to  say,  distin- 
guished from  the  concept),  to  equality  with  the  concept , which 
thereby  becomes  capable  of  receiving  for  the  Idea  its  true 
realization.  In  this  process  the  subjective  will  determines 
itself  thereby  as  truly  objective  and  concrete. 

Supplementary.  — In  treating  of  strict  formal  right,  we 
were  not  concerned  with  the  question  as  to  one’s  principle 
or  intention.  This  question  concerning  the  self-determina- 
tion and  motive  ( Triebfeder ) of  the  will,  as  well  as  concern- 
ing design,  enters  only  here  with  the  moral. 

A man  desires  to  be  judged  according  to  his  own  self- 
determination  ; he  is,  in  this  respect,  free,  whatever  the 
external  conditions  may  be.  One  cannot  encroach  upon 
this  conviction  of  men  ; no  violence  can  be  done  to  it,  and 
the  moral  will  is  therefore  inaccessible.  Man’s  worth  is 
estimated  according  to  his  inner  action,  and  hence,  the 
moral  standpoint  is  that  of  independent  freedom. 

§ 107. 

The  self-determination  of  the  will  is  at  the  same  time  a 
phase  of  its  concept,  and  subjectivity  is  not  only  the  side  of 
its  determinate  being,  but  it  is  its  own  determination.  The 
independent  free-will,  defined  as  subjective,  at  first  as 
concept,  has,  itself,  determined  being  in  order  to  exist  as 
Idea.  The  moral  standpoint  is  therefore,  as  to  its  form,  the 
right  of  the  subjective  will.  According  to  this  right,  the 
will  recognizes,  and  is,  something  only  in  so  far  as  the  right 
is  its  own.  The  will  is  in  this  as  a subjective  thing  to 
itself.  . . . 

Supplementary.  — The  whole  determination  of  the  will  is 
again  a totality  which  as  subjectivity  must  also  have  objec- 
tivity. Freedom  can  realize  itself  only  in  the  subject,  foru 
the  subject  is  the  true  material  for  this  realization.  But  this  j 


MORALITY. 


io5 

determinate  being  of  the  will,  which  we  called  subjectivity,  1 
is  different  from  the  absolutely  independent  will.  The  will, 
in  order  to  become  such  independent  will,  must  free  itself 
from  this  other,  from  the  one-sidedness  of  mere  subjectivity. 
In  morality  it  is  the  distinct  interest  of  men  which  comes  in 
question,  and  this  is  just  the  high  value  of  the  same,  that 
man  knows  himself  as  absolute  and  that  he  determines  him- 
self. The  uncultured  man  allows  himself  to  be  imposed 
upon  by  mere  brute  force  and  natural  laws.  Children  like- 
wise have  no  moral  will,  but  permit  themselves  to  be  directed 
by  their  parents.  But  the  cultured  self-developing  man  de- 
sires that  he  himself  be  in  everything  which  he  does. 

§ 108. 

The  subjective  will,  as  immediately  for  itself  and  dis- 
tinguished from  the  potential  will,  is  hence  abstract,  limited 
and  formal.  But  subjectivity  is  not  only  formal,  but,  as  the 
infinite  self-determination  of  the  will,  it  constitutes  the  for- 
mality of  the  same.  As  this,  in  its  first  appearance  as  indi- 
vidual will,  is  not  yet  posited  as  identical  with  the  concept  of 
the  will,  we  find  that  the  moral  standpoint  is  that  of  relation, 
of  obligation  or  requirement.  And  inasmuch  as  the  element 
of  difference  in  subjectivity  contains  just  as  well  determina- 
tion opposed  to  objectivity  in  the  form  of  determinate  being, 
so  the  standpoint  of  consciousness  is  here  also  attained  — or 
in  general,  the  standpoint  of  difference,  finiteness  and  phe- 
nomenality  ( Erscheinung ) of  will. 

The  moral  is  primarily  not  yet  determined  as  the  opposite 
of  the  immoral,  as  right  is  not  immediately  the  opposite 
of  wrong  ; but  it  is  the  universal  standpoint  of  the  moral  as 
well  as  of  the  immoral  which  is  based  upon  the  subjectivity 
of  the  will. 

I Supplementary.- — Self-determination  in  morality  is  to  be 
conceived  of  as  the  pure  restless  activity  which  has  not  yet 
attained  any  definite  existence.  It  is  first  in  the  ethical 


io6 


MORALITY. 


d Sittlichen ) that  the  will  is  identical  with  the  concept  of  the 
will  and  has  only  this  latter  as  its  content.  In  the  moral,  the 
will  is  still  related  to  that  which  is  potential.  It  is  therefore 
the  standpoint  of  difference,  and  the  process  of  this  stand- 
point is  the  identification  of  the  subjective  will  with  the 
concept  of  the  latter.  The  ought , which  is  the  distinguishing 
element  of  morality,  does  not  however  attain  to  actual  ex- 
istence, except  in  concrete  social  relations  of  men.  This 
ought  to  which  the  subjective  will  is  related  is  a double 
thing.  It  is  one  time  the  substantial  being  of  the  concept, , 
and  again  the  externally  existing.  Even  if  the  good  were 
posited  in  the  subjective  will,  it  would  not  yet  be  thereby 
executed. 

Resume  of  § 109 -§  113. 

The  formal  character  of  the  moral  standpoint  passes  from 
the  opposition  between  the  subjective  and  the  objective  into 
the  simple  identity  of  the  will  with  itself  in  this  opposition. 
Here  we  have  the  content  of  the  will,  present  in  both  ele- 
ments and  indifferent  as  to  form  as  regards  these  differences. 
This  is  what  we  know  as  the  Ai?n  {der  Zweck). 

But  on  the  moral  standpoint,  this  identity  of  content  has 
further  characteristics  — 

(a)  The  content  is  so  determined  as  mine  that  it  contains 
explicitly  my  very  subjectivity,  both  as  my  inner  aim  and  as 
the  external  objectivity  which  it  may  have  received. 

{!>)  Let  the  content  have  some  particular  form  from  any 
source,  it  still  must  be  conformable  to  the  implicit  will.  But 
as  this  will  is  still  formal,  this  conformity  is  only  a demand 
and  contains  the  possibility  of  being  non-conformity. 

(y)  Inasmuch  as  I attain  my  subjectivity  in  the  accomplish- 
ment of  my  aim,  I thus  annul  my  immediate  undeveloped 
subjectivity.  But  this  external  subjectivity  is  the  will  of 
others  (§  73).  Hence  the  accomplishment  of  my  aim  im- 
plies the  identity  of  my  will  with  that  of  others.  The  utter- 


MORALITY. 


107 

ance  of  the  subjective  or  moral  will  is  found  in  action.  Such 
action  implies  that  I know  it  as  mine,  in  essential  relation  to 
the  concept  (as  obligatory)  and  to  the  will  of  others.  Thus 
a moral  action  is  distinguished  from  a legal  one. 

§ 114. 

The  right  of  moral  will  has  three  sides: 

(A)  The  abstract  or  formal  right  of  action,  in  such  a way 
that  the  content  of  the  action,  carried  out  into  immediate 
determinate  existence,  be  mine  and  represent  the  purpose  of 
my  subjective  will. 

(i?)  The  special  character  of  the  action  is  its  inner  con- 
tent (a)  as  it  is  for  me,  v^hose  universal  character  is  deter- 
mined by  the  worth  of  the  action  and  what  it  avails  for  me 
— that  is  inner  intention  — (/?)  its  content  as  the  special  aim 
of  my  particular  subjective  being,  that  is,  individual  well-being. 

(C)  This  inner  content  in  its  universality,  as  elevated 
into  absolute,  existing  objectivity,  is  the  absolute  aim  of 
will  as  will  — that  is  the  Good.  This  is  in  the  sphere  of 
the  reflexion  with  the  antithesis  of  subjective  universality, 
partly  of  evil,  and  partly  of  conscience. 

Supplementary.  — In  order  to  be  moral,  every  action  must 
primarily  harmonize  with  my  purpose , for  the  right  of  the 
moral  will  consists  in  recognizing  in  any  action  only  that 
which  was  internally  designed.  Purpose  thus  makes  the 
formal  demand  that  the  objective  will  be  also  the  internal  thing 
willed  by  me.  In  the  second  phase,  that  of  inner  intention , 
the  question  is  concerning  the  relative  worth  of  the  action 
in  reference  to  myself.  The  third  phase  concerns  not  only 
the  relative  but  the  absolute  worth  of  the  action,  that  is,  the 
Good.  The  first  breach  of  the  action  is  between  something 
proposed,  and  some  definite  accomplished  affair.  Then 
follows  the  breach  between  that  which  is  external  as  uni- 
versal will  and  the  inner  particular  character  which  I give 
it.  Thirdly  we  have  the  demand  that  the  intention  have 


io8 


MORALITY. 


universal  validity.  The  Good  is  intention  elevated  to  the 
concept  of  the  will. 


FIRST  SECTION. 

Purpose  and  Culpability. 

§ 115. 

The  limitation  of  the  subjective  will  in  external  action 
arises  from  the  fact  that  in  all  such  action  there  is  the  pre- 
supposition of  an  external  object  and  its  manifold  environ- 
ment. A deed  implies  the  working  of  a change  in  this 
external  realm,  and  the  will  is  culpable  in  so  far  as  the 
change  thus  wrought  can  be  called  mine,  as  being  that  pro- 
posed by  me.  . . . 

Supplementary.  — What  was  in  my  purpose  can  be  imputed 
to  me.  It  is  with  this  proposed  deed  that  we  are  chiefly 
concerned  when  dealing  with  crime.  But  in  culpability 
(Schuld)  there  is  the  merely  external  judgment  as  to  whether 
I have  done  a certain  thing  or  not.  Culpability  does  not 
primarily  imply  the  quality  of  imputability. 

§ 117. 

In  proposing  to  work  a change  in  the  given  external 
realm,  the  self-acting  will  has  a general  idea  of  the  circum- 
stances. But  as  these  circumstances  limit  it,  the  objective 
phenomenon  is  accidental  and  may  contain  something  quite 
other  than  one’s  general  idea  of  it.  The  subjective  will 
claims  as  its  right,  that,  in  any  of  its  deeds,  it  recognize  as 
its  own  and  be  held  responsible  for  only  what  it  proposed 
to  do.  The  deed  can  only  be  imputed  to  the  will,  and  for 
this  the  will  demands  the  right  of  knowledge. 


PURPOSE  AND  CULPABILITY. 


109 


§ 118. 

The  action,  passing  from  the  internal  will  into  an  external 
realm  where  external  necessity  binds  all  together,  is  followed 
by  many  consequences  not  calculated  upon.  In  one  way, 
the  consequences  properly  belong  to  the  action,  as  being 
what  was  aimed  at.  But  at  the  same  time  the  deed  passes 
over  into  the  dominion  of  external  powers  which  add  to  it 
many  foreign  consequences.  It  cannot  reckon  all  the  con- 
sequences as  its  own,  as  being  aimed  at  by  itself  and  so  it 
disclaims  responsibility  for  all  consequences  not  contained 
in  its  original  design. 

It  is  difficult,  however,  to  distinguish  between  the  accidental 
and  the  necessary  or  proper  consequences  of  one’s  own  ac- 
tion, for  the  inner  purpose  or  plan  is  nothing,  for  others  at 
least,  till  it  enters  the  objective  realm,  and,  once  there,  inex- 
tricable complication  bids  defiance  to  perfectly  clear  de- 
markation  between  the  two  sorts  of  consequences.  The 
principle  is  sometimes  announced  that  in  acting  we  may  de- 
spise consequences.  On  the  other  hand  it  is  proclaimed 
that  actions  are  to  be  judged  solely  by  their  consequences. 
Both  of  these  principles  are  abstract  and  untrue.  . . . 

Supplementary.  — This  disclaiming  responsibility  for  all 
consequences  not  proposed  soon  leads  to  the  next  phase  — 
that  of  Intention.  But  there  are  consequences  beyond  the 
known  and  proposed  external  effects.  Although  my  deed  is 
some  one  particular  thing,  it  yet  contains  necessary  and  uni- 
versal qualities.  I cannot  forsee  all  external  effects  of  a 
proposed  action,  but  I must  know  the  universal  element  im- 
plicit in  every  deed.  The  transition  from  Purpose  to  Intention 
consists  in  the  recognition  that  I ought  to  know  the  universal 
element  in  every  action  so  as  to  will  it,  to  intend  it. 


I IO 


MORALITY. 


SECOND  SECTION. 

Intention  and  Well-being. 

§ 119. 

The  external  form  of  an  act  is  a manifold  context  of 
countless  particularities.  The  act  may  be  considered  in  such 
a way  that  at  first  cognizance  is  taken  of  only  one  of  these 
many  particularities.  But  the  truth  of  the  individual  is  the 
universal, — the  real  character  of  the  act  as  such  is  not 
merely  an  isolated  external  thing,  but  it  is  rather  a uni- 
versal embracing  the  whole  of  a manifold  context.  Purpose, 
proceeding  from  a thinking  being,  contains  not  only  the  indi- 
vidual, but  also  essentially  the  universal  side.  Such  purpose 
we  call  Intention. 

Intention  is  really  an  abstraction.  The  attempt  at  justifi- 
cation through  one’s  intention  is  really  the  isolating  of  a 
single  aspect  of  the  deed,  which  is  maintained  as  the  sub- 
jective essence  of  the  deed.  But  the  universal  quality  of 
the  deed  is  also  manifested  in  its  accomplishment.  Incendi- 
arism is  the  actual  result  of  the  intention  to  set  fire  to  only 
a little  pile  of  kindling  wood.  Murder  is  the  result  of 
cutting  out  a pound  of  flesh  from  a living  body.  That  is, 
one  cannot  really  intend  an  isolated  single  side  of  an  action. 
. . . In  acting  a man  has  to  do  with  external  consequences. 
An  old  proverb  says  : “A  stone  flung  from  the  hand  is  the 
very  devil.”  A man  has  to  face  the  bad  as  well  as  good 
consequences  of  all  his  deeds.  These  are  really  definite 
qualities  of  his  own  will. 

§ 120. 

The  right  of  Intention  is  that  the  universal  quality  of  the 
act  be  not  only  implicit,  but  be  fully  known  to  the  one 
doing  the  act,  as  having  been  the  real  purpose  of  his  will. 


INTENTION  AND  WELL-BEING. 


Ill 


On  the  other  hand  the  right,  as  regards  the  external  form  of 
the  act,  is  the  right  of  its  being  considered  as  something 
known  and  willed  by  a rational  being. 

This  right  to  such  insight  implies  the  slight  or  total  lack 
of  responsibility  of  children,  the  feeble-minded  and  insane 
for  their  actions.  But  as  all  such  actions  have  numerous 
contingent  effects,  we  can  say  that  their  subjective  quality 
has  that  lack  of  character,  as  regards  the  power  and 
strength  of  self-consciousness  and  thoughtfulness.  Only 
such  particular  conditions  annul  the  character  of  thought 
and  freedom  of  will,  and  lead  us  to  consider  these  actions 
not  according  to  the  worth  which  they  would  have  as  pro- 
ceeding from  a rational  will. 


§ 121. 

The  universal  quality  of  an  act  is  its  manifold  content  in 
general,  reduced  to  the  simple  form  of  universality.  But 
the  subjective  individual,  as  contrasted  with  the  objective 
particularity  of  his  deed,  has  in  his  aim  his  own  peculiar 
intent,  which  is  the  determining  soul  of  the  act.  The  fact 
that  this  subjective  phase  is  contained  and  accomplished  in 
the  act,  constitutes  the  concrete  character  of  subjective 
freedom,  the  right  of  the  subject  to  find  his  satisfaction  in 
the  act. 

[In  a supplementary  note  Hegel  illustrates  this  right  of 
intention.  Murder  may  have  been  committed.  We  ask 
whether  it  was  the  intent  of  the  doer  rather,  than  an  unin- 
tentional consequence  of  some  action.  It  is  the  motive 
that  constitutes  primarily  what  is  called  the  moral  element. 
This  moral  element  has  the  sense  of  the  universal  in 
purpose  and  the  particular  of  the  intention.  In  modern 
times,  the  chief  question  concerns  the  motive  of  an  act, 
while  formerly  it  was  merely  asked  : Is  this  man  honest, 
does  he  do  his  duty  ? To-day  we  look  at  the  heart  and 


I I 2 


MORALITY. 


presuppose  a breach  between  the  external  action  and  the 
inner  subjective  motive.  The  higher  moral  standpoint, 
however,  is  that  of  a harmony  between  the  two  sides,  so 
that  the  external  side  corresponds  to  and  satisfies  the 
subjective  purpose.  The  merely  objective  method  of  esti- 
mating the  worth  of  deeds  has  its  epochs  both  in  the  history 
of  the  world  and  of  individuals.] 

§ 122. 

Through  the  motive,  the  action  has  personal  subjective 
worth  and  interest.  In  reference  to  this  subjective  aim, 
the  wider  effects  of  the  act  are  reduced  to  means.  But,  in 
so  far  as  such  an  aim  is  a finite  thing,  it  can  in  turn  be 
reduced  to  a means  to  a further  design,  etc.,  ad  infinitum. 

§ 123. 

As  regards  the  content  of  such  aims,  we  have  here 
(a)  merely  the  formal  activity — that  the  person’s  activity 
be  limited  to  what  he  considers  his  aim.  One  wishes  to 
work  only  for  his  own  interests,  or  for  what  should  be  his 
interests,  (ß)  Such  abstract  formal  freedom  has,  however, 
further  definite  content  only  in  the  natural  phases  of  its 
subjective  determinate  being — needs,  inclinations,  passions, 
opinions,  fancies,  etc.  The  satisfaction  of  such  a content  is 
Well-being , in  particular  and  in  general.  This  is  the  sphere 
of  finite  aims. 

[In  a supplementary  note  Hegel  asks  whether  a man  has 
the  right  to  choose  such  un-free  finite  aims,  and  gives  an 
affirmative  answer.  It  is  not  a mere  accident,  but  according 
to  reason,  that  man  is  a living  being,  and,  so  far,  he  has  a 
right  to  make  his  wants  his  aim.  There  is  nothing  degrad- 
ing in  being  such  a living  creature,  and  there  is  also  no 
higher  form  in  which  he  can  manifest  his  spirituality.] 


INTENTION  AND  WELL-BEING. 


"3 


§ 124. 

. . . The  series  of  man’s  deeds  constitutes  the  very 
man.  If  this  series  of  actions  be  worthless,  so  also  is  the 
subjectivity  of  his  will  worthless.  If  on  the  contrary  the 
series  of  deeds  be  substantial,  so  also  is  the  inner  will  of 
the  individual  substantial. 

This  right  of  subjective  freedom  constitutes  the  turning 
point  between  antiquity  and  modern  times.  This  right  in 
all  its  infinitude  is  pronounced,  and  raised  into  being  a 
universal  principle,  by  Christianity.  Subordinate  elements 
of  this  principle  are  love,  Romanticism,  the  eternal  bliss  of 
the  individual ; further,  morality  and  conscience  ; further, 
the  principles  of  civil  order,  and  the  forms  in  the  history  of 
art,  science  and  philosophy.  But  abstract  reflexion  may  so 
emphasize  this  element  in  opposition  to  the  universal,  as  to 
lead  to  a view  of  morality  that  makes  it  to  consist  in  a 
perpetual  hostile  conflict  with  one’s  own  satisfaction  — the 
demand  “ to  do  with  aversion  what  duty  commands.” 

Such  an  abstract  view  gives  rise  to  the  “psychological 
view”  of  history,  which  seeks  to  belittle  all  great  deeds  and 
heroes  by  reducing  the  primary  intentions  which  found  their 
satisfaction  in  substantial  activity,  to  mere  morbid  cravings 
for  glory  and  renown,  as  the  real  motives  of  the  actions.  . . 
This  is  the  view  of  “ psychological  valets  to  whom  no  men 
are  heroes  because  they  themselves  are  only  valets.” 

§ 125. 

The  subjective,  in  connection  with  the  particular  content 
of  well-being,  stands  (as  being  inwardly  reflected,  as  some- 
thing infinite)  at  the  same  time  in  relation  to  the  universal, 
i.e.,  to  the  potentially  existing  will.  This  phase,  primarily 
posited  in  the  form  of  particularity,  is  the  well-being  of  others 
also  — yes  even,  in  a perfect  yet  empty  definition,  the  welfare 
of  all.  Thus  the  essential  aim  and  right  of  subjectivity  is 


ii4 


MORALITY. 


really  the  welfare  of  many  other  persons.  But  inasmuch  as 
such  absolute  universality,  as  distinguished  from  such  par- 
ticular content,  has  not  yet  been  defined  further  than  as 
being  the  right,  these  particular  aims  distinguished  from  uni- 
versal aims  may  or  may  not  be  consonant  with  them. 

§ 126. 

My  own  right,  as  well  as  that  of  others,  is  a right  only  in 
so  far  as  1 am  a free  being.  Hence  it  cannot  maintain  itself 
in  opposition  to  this,  its  substantial  foundation.  Further, 
any  plan  for  the  welfare  of  myself  or  of  others  (which  we 
call  moral  design)  cannot  justify  a wrong  deed. 

Supplementary.  — Even  life  is  not  a necessity  when  in  con- 
flict with  the  higher  freedom.  The  famous  answer  given  to 
a libeller  who  excused  himself  by  saying,  il  faut  done  que  je 
vive,  was  je  n'en  vois  pas  la  necessity.  When  St.  Crispen  stole 
leather  to  make, shoes  for  the  poor,  his  action  may  be  called 
moral , and  yet  it  was  unlawful  and  therefore  unsound. 

§ 127. 

We  may  embrace  under  the  term  life,  as  personal  exist- 
ence, the  whole  of  the  interests  of  the  natural  will.  Life, 
in  cases  of  extreme  danger  or  in  collision  with  the  legal 
property  of  others,  has  a claim  to  the  right  of  necessity  (not 
in  equity  but  as  a right).  It  has  such  claim  inasmuch  as  on 
the  one  hand  we  have  the  absolute  violation  of  the  total 
personality  and,  consequently,  the  total  lack  of  right  as 
concerns  the  individual,  while  on  the  other  hand  we  have 
only  the  violation  of  a limited  form  of  freedom.  At  the 
same  time,  however,  the  right  as  such  is  acknowledged  as 
well  as  the  claim  to  right  of  the  one  injured  in  this  special 
property. 

Out  of  this  right  of  necessity  arises  the  beneficiuiti  com- 
petentiae ; that  to  a debtor  must  be  left  his  tools,  farming  im- 


INTENTION  AND  WELL-BEING.  115 

plements,  clothing  — in  a word,  as  much  of  his  property  as 
is  absolutely  necessary  for  his  maintenance  according  to  his 
condition  of  life. 

Supplementary.  — Life  has  its  claims  as  against  any  merely 
abstract  right.  Hence  stealing  a loaf  of  bread  to  preserve 
one’s  life  is  of  course  an  unlawful  act,  but  cannot  be  treated 
as  common  theft.  If  one,  in  immediate  danger  of  losing 
his  life,  should  not  be  permitted  to  preserve  his  life  at  all 
hazards,  he  would  be  void  of  all  rights.  The  loss  of  life 
implies  the  negation  of  the  totality  of  his  freedom. 

§ 128. 

This  right  of  necessity  reveals  to  us  the  finitude  and  con- 
sequently the  contingency  of  right  under  the  form  of  well- 
being. This  form  we  see  to  be  that  of  the  abstract  determi- 
nation of  freedom,  without  its  being  the  existence  of  the 
particular  person.  It  is  that  of  the  particular  will  without 
the  universality  of  the  right.  Its  onesidedness  and  ideality 
(/.  e.,  its  being  reduced  from  independence  to  the  form  of 
being  a constituent  element  in  a larger  whole)  is  accordingly 
posited,  as  it  has  in  itself  been  already  determined  in  the 
concept.  Right  has  formerly  characterized  its  determinate 
being  as  the  particular  will  ; and  subjectivity  in  its  inclusive 
particularity  is  itself  the  determinate  being  of  freedom,  as 
it  is  potentially  that  of  infinite  relation  of  the  will  to  itself, 
the  universality  of  freedom.  Both  phases  in  them  thus 
unified  to  their  truth,  to  their  identity  (though  at  first  only 
in  relative  relation  to  each  other)  constitute  the  Good  as  the 
perfected,  the  independently  characterized  universal,  and 
Conscience  as  (in  itself  knowing  and  in  itself  determining  of 
content)  infinite  subjectivity.  ' 


MORALITY. 


1 16 


THIRD  SECTION. 

The  Good  and  Conscience. 

§ 129. 

The  Good  is  the  Idea , as  the  unity  of  the  concept  of  the 
will  and  of  the  particular  will.  It  is  realized  freedom,  the 
absolute  final  purpose  of  the  world.  In  this  unity,  abstract 
right,  as  well  as  well-being , and  the  subjectivity  of  knowledge 
and  the  contingency  of  external  determinite  being  are  an- 
nulled as  independent  in  themselves,  but  at  the  same  time 
are  contained  and  preserved  in  it  as  to  their  essence. 

Supplementary.  — Each  phase  is  properly  the  Idea.  But 
the  earlier  phases  contain  the  Idea  only  in  abstract  form. 
Thus,  for  example,  the  Ego  as  personality  is  already  the 
Idea , but  in  its  most  abstract  form.  Hence  the  Good  is  the 
more  fully  determined  Idea , the  unity  of  the  concept  of  the 
will  and  of  the  particular  will.  It  is  not  an  abstract  legal 
thing,  but  it  is  full  of  content.  And  it  is  this  content  which 
constitutes  right  as  well  as  well-being. 

§ 130. 

In  this  Idea , well-being  has  no  actual  validity,  as  the  deter- 
minate being  of  a particular  individual  will,  but  only  as 
universal  well-being  and,  essentially,  as  universal  in  itself,  i.  e., 
according  to  the  concept  of  freedom.  Well-being  is  not  good 
when  devoid  of  right,  nor  is  the  right  good  when  devoid  of 
well-being.  ( Fiat  justitia  must  not  have  as  its  consequence 
pereat  miindus.)  Consequently,  the  Good  (as  the  necessity 
of  actuality  through  the  particular  will  and  at  the  same  time 
as  its  substance)  has  absolute  right  against  the  abstract 
right  of  property  and  any  particular  ends  of  well-being. 
Each  of  these  phases,  so  far  as  distinguished  from  the 
good,  has  validity  only  in  so  far  as  it  is  in  accordance  with 
the  Good  and  subordinate  to  it. 


THE  GOOD  AND  CONSCIENCE. 


§ 131. 

Thus  the  Good  is  the  absolutely  essential  for  the  subjective 
will,  which  has  worth  and  dignity  only  in  so  far  as,  in  its 
insight  and  intent,  it  corresponds  with  the  good.  So  far  as 
the  good  is,  at  this  stage,  still  the  abstract  Idea  of  the  good, 
the  subjective  will  has  not  yet  been  taken  up  into  it  and 
made  conformable  to  it.  Hence  subjective  will  is  in  a 
relation  to  the  good,  inasmuch  as  the  good  is  its  substantial 
content.  It  is  obligated  to  make  the  good  its  purpose  and 
accomplish  it.  On  the  other  hand  the  good  is  only  actual- 
ized through  the  mediation  of  the  subjective  will. 

Supplementary.  — The  will  is  not  absolutely  good,  but  can 
only  become  the  good  that  it  is  potentially,  through  its  own 
labor.  So,  too,  the  good  without  the  subjective  element  is 
only  an  abstraction.  The  development  of  the  Good  con- 
tains three  stages:  (i)  The  good  for  me  the  willing  one,  is 
particular  will  and  I know  it  as  such.  (2)  We  define  the 
Good  and  develop  its  particular  characteristics.  (3)  We 
have  the  act  of  pointing  out  definitely  what  is  the  good  as 
such,  the  particularity  of  the  good  as  infinite  self-dependent 
subjectivity.  This  internal  act  of  specifying  just  what  is 
good  is  the  Conscience. 

§ 132. 

It  is  the  right  of  the  subjective  will  that  whatever  it  is  to 
recognize  as  binding  be  apprehended  by  it  as  good.  This 
right  involves,  further,  that  a person  be  held  responsible  for 
any  external  action,  only  so  far  as  he  knows  its  external 
value,  whether  it  be  right  or  wrong,  good  or  bad,  lawful  or 
unlawful. 

[Hegel  further  maintains,  that  as  the  good  is  only  the  truth 
of  the  will,  it  is  only  possible  in  thought  and  through 
thought.  Hence  all  agnosticism  is  fatal  to  morality.  It  is 
indeed  the  highest  right  of  the  subject  to  recognize  nothing 


MORALITY 


1 18 

as  obligatory  which  he,  as  a rational  being,  does  not  see  to 
be  such.  But  this  subjective  standpoint  neglects  the  right 
of  objective  rationality.  The  insight  of  subjective  reason  is 
liable  to  be  a mere  fancy  or  an  error.  It  is  a proper  part  of 
one’s  subjective  culture,  that  he  attain  to  this  right  of  insight. 
1 must  have  the  conviction  of  a duty  on  good  grounds,  and 
must  recognize  it  to  be  essentially  my  duty.  . . . This 
right  of  insight  into  the  very  nature  of  good  differs  from  the 
right  of  zwAsight,  of  knowledge  as  to  the  external  conse- 
quence of  an  act.  The  first  has  to  do  only  with  the  inward 
peace  of  a quiet  conscience.  The  latter  concerns  the  con- 
formity of  intention  with  external  consequences.  Hence  it 
is  that  in  the  state,  legal  culpability  cannot  be  restricted  to 
the  dictates  of  private  conscience  as  to  what  is  right  or 
wrong.  Here  the  citizen  can  only  claim  the  right  to  have 
the  laws  so  explicitly  promulgated  that  he  may  know  what 
is  legal  and  illegal.  Private  conscience  may  be  allowed  to 
have  its  own  convictions  so  long  as  these  do  not  go  forth 
in  opposition  to  the  existing  ethical  conditions  of  society. 
The  law  indeed  judges  children  and  the  feeble-minded  quite 
leniently.  But  it  is  the  nature  of  man  as  man  to  be  rational 
— to  will  the  universal,  and  he  must  be  held  responsible  for 
doing  so.  The  incendiary  is  not  only  guilty  of  lighting  a 
bundle  of  straw,  but  of  burning  down  the  house.  He  is 
responsible  not  only  for  the  proposed  external  consequences 
of  his  deed,  but  also  for  his  inner  purpose  to  commit  the 
deed,  for  his  bad  will.  It  is  on  this  standpoint  of  con- 
science that  responsibility  for  its  dictates  is  demanded.  . . . 

§ 133. 

The  good  stands  in  its  relation  to  the  subject  as  his  own 
essential  will,  and  hence  as  his  bounden  duty.  However, 
there  is  still  a distinction  between  the  good  and  any  par- 
ticular choice  of  the  subjective  will.  At  this  stage  the  good 
has  only  the  character  of  abstract  universality.  That  is,  it 


THE  GOOD  AND  CONSCIENCE. 


119 

has  the  form  of  Duty.  Hence  the  maxim,  “ Duty  must  be 
done  for  duty’s  sake.” 

Supplementary.  — ...  It  is  the  merit  of  the  lofty  stand- 
point of  Kant’s  philosophy  to  have  emphasized  the  signifi- 
cance of  duty. 

§ 134. 

Every  action  demands  some  definite  content  and  aim. 
But  abstract  duty  does  not  contain  such.  Consequently  the 
question  arises,  what  is  duty  ? The  only  reply  that  can  be 
given  from  this  standpoint  of  duty  is,  to  do  right  and  to  care 
for  the  welfare  of  one’s  self  and  of  all  his  fellows. 

§ 135. 

[In  this  paragraph  Hegel  maintains  that  Duty  is  an  abso- 
lutely abstract,  contentless  universal,  and  hence  stigmatizes 
Kant’s  theory  of  duty  as  being  an  empty  formalism,  and 
his  moral  science,  as  mere  talk  about  duty  for  duty’s  sake. 
This  standpoint  affords  no  immanent  doctrine  of  particular 
duties.  One  can  only  arrive  at  particular  duties  by  import- 
ing something  into  this  empty  principle  from  without.  It 
contains  no  criterion  as  to  whether  any  particular  act  is 
a duty  or  not.  In  truth,  one  may  say  that  any  and  every 
illegal  and  immoral  act  might  be  justified  on  Kant’s  maxim. 
It  is  only  so  far  as  the  right  of  property  and  life  are  pre- 
supposed, that  theft  and  murder  contradict  the  maxim. 
Abstractly  considered,  however,  the  maxim  does  not  con- 
tain this,  but  must  borrow  it  from  concrete  ethical  condi- 
tions already  attained.1] 

§ 136. 

The  nature  of  the  good  being  thus  abstract  and  formal, 
causes  the  other  element  of  the  Idea  (that  of  particularity) 

1 Hegel  refers  to  his  fuller  criticisms  of  Kant’s  principle  made  in  his 
Phänomenologie  des  Geistes,  which  are  reproduced  by  Prof.  Edward 
Caird  in  his  Critical  Philosophy  of  Kant,  Vol.  II,  pp.  186-1S8. 


120 


MORALITY. 


to  fall  within  the  sphere  of  subjectivity.  This  subjectivity 
is  (in  its  universality  turned  back  into  itself)  its  own  abso- 
lute certitude  of  itself ; it  is  the  specifying,  the  determining, 
the  deciding  element  — in  a word  it  is  the  Conscience. 

Supplementary. — We  may  speak  in  very  lofty  terms  of 
duty.  To  do  so  elevates  man  and  enlarges  his  heart.  But 
such  talk  becomes  tedious  when  it  fails  to  point  out  and 
lead  to  the  accomplishment  of  any  single  duty.  The  spirit 
requires  some  specific  form  as  that  to  which  he  is  obligated. 
But  duty,  as  used  by  Kant,  is  that  inner  abysmal  solitude, 
which  excludes  all  specification.  A man  on  the  standpoint 
of  mere  Conscience  is,  indeed,  freed  from  all  shackles  of 
special  commands.  In  one  way  this  is  a higher  standpoint. 
It  is  the  modern  world  that  first  attained  to  such  conscious- 
ness. Previous  ages  have  been  more  sensuous.  They 
have  had  some  external  positive  forms  to  guide  them,  either 
of  a religious  or  legal  sort.  But  Conscience  knows  and 
identifies  itself  with  every  thought.  What  is  my  own  sub- 
jective thought,  that  alone  is  binding  upon  me. 

§ 137. 

The  genuine  conscience  is  that  frame  of  mind  ( Gesin- 
nung) which  wishes  for  that  only  which  is  absolutely  good. 
Hence  it  has  well-established  principles  — the  current  explicit 
virtues  and  duties.  As  distinguished  from  this  concrete 
content,  the  truth,  it  is  only  the  formal  side  of  the  activity 
of  the  will  which,  as  such,  has  no  particular  content.  But 
the  ol^ective  system  of  these  principles  and  duties,  and 
the  union  of  the  subjective  knowledge  with  them,  is  first 
attained  on  the  succeeding  standpoint  — that  of  Ethicality 
( Sittlichkeit ).  On  the  formal  standpoint  of  morality,  con- 
science lacks  all  such  objective  content.  It  is  merely  the 
infinite  formal  certitude  of  itself — -of  the  subjective  indi- 
vidual. 


THE  GOOD  AND  CONSCIENCE. 


12  i 


Conscience  expresses  the  absolute  right  of  the  subjective 
self-consciousness,  to  know  perfectly  just  what  the  right 
and  the  obligatory  are.  It  can  acknowledge  nothing  but 
that  which  it  knows  as  absolutely  good.  Further,  it  must 
maintain  as  truly  right  and  obligatory,  whatever  it  thus 
knows  and  wills.  Conscience  is  the  unity  of  subjective 
knowledge  and  of  the  absolute  truth.  It  is  a holy  of  holies, 
to  meddle  with  which  would  be  sacrilegious.  But  it  is  only 
the  definite  content  of  what  is  esteemed  to  be  good,  which 
can  decide  whether  the  conscience  of  any  particular  indi- 
vidual corresponds  to  this  Idea  of  the  Conscience.  Right 
and  duty,  as  the  absolutely  rational  characteristics  of  the 
will,  are  neither  the  particular  quality  of  an  individual’s 
will,  nor  a mere  sentimental  form,  but  they  are  universal 
laws  and  principles.  Through  these  alone  it  is  to  be  deter- 
mined whether  one’s  conscience  is  true  or  not.  Any  appeal 
to  only  its  own  arbitrary  views,  is  directly  opposed  to  what 
it  professes  to  be,  that  is,  to  the  rational  and  absolutely 
valid  modes  of  conduct. 

Hence  the  state  cannot  acknowledge  the  validity  of  any 
merely  private  conscience,  any  more  than  science  can  accept 
merely  subjective  views.  Still  the  private  conscience  can 
separate  itself  from  this  true  content  and  degrade  it  to  a 
mere  form  and  semblance,  by  standing  upon  its  own  views. 
Hence  ambiguity  in  regard  to  conscience  lies  in  the  pre- 
supposed identity  of  subjective  conscience  with  objective 
good,  which  renders  it  sacred.  Private  conscience,  however, 
may  claim  the  validity  which  belongs  only  to  this  absolutely 
rational  content.  We  are  now  treating  of  the  moral  stand- 
point as  distinguished  from  the  ethical  ( sittlichen ) standpoint. 
We  have  spoken  of  the  true  conscience  here  only  to  avoid  any 
misunderstanding.  Our  criticisms  of  the  formal  conscience 
do  not  apply  to  the  true  conscience,  which  belongs  to  the 
ethical  frame  of  mind  treated  of  in  Part  Third.  We  note, 
too,  that  the  religious  conscience  is  not  to  be  treated  of  here. 


122 


MORALITY. 


§ 138- 

This  form  of  private  conscience  really  dissolves  all  definite 
forms  of  right  and  duty.  It  is  the  judge  which  determines 
its  content  from  within.  At  the  same  time  it  is  the  power 
which  actualizes  any  conjectured  and  obligatory  good. 

[Hegel  says  that  in  epochs  when  the  current  forms  of  right 
and  good  could  not  satisfy  the  better  will,  philosophers  like 
Socrates  and  the  Stoics  sought  to  find  within  themselves  and 
to  determine  out  of  their  own  minds,  truer  forms  of  right 
and  good.  . . . 

Supplementary.  — We  may  grant  that  no  current  form  of 
morality  is  absolutely  true  and  final.  When  any  current 
form  has  become  insufficient  or  obsolete,  it  is  the  preroga- 
tive of  subjectivity  to  evolve  another  one.  In  truth  every 
existing  form  of  ethicality  (concrete  social  morality)  has 
been  produced  through  this  subjective  activity  of  the  social 
spirit.  We  may  grant  this  without  retracting  our  criticisms 
upon  the  formal  and  formless  character  of  mere  subject- 
ivity, before  it  has  produced  new  forms.  It  is  only  in  times 
when  the  current  codes  are  empty  and  spiritless  and  exist 
as  a mere  dead  letter,  that  it  is  right  for  the  individual  to 
withdraw  to  his  own  inner  sanctuary.  This  was  the  case  of 
Socrates.  The  same  is  also  more  or  less  true  in  some 
present  conditions  of  society.] 

§ 139. 

The  subjective  will  may  thus  refuse  to  acknowledge  the 
validity  of  definite  current  forms  of  duty  and  insist  upon 
maintaining  its  own  inner  convictions.  In  so  far  as  it  does 
so,  it  is  really  the  possibility  of  elevating  its  own  arbitrary 
caprice  to  supremacy  over  the  true  universal,  and  of  actual- 
izing this  usurpation  in  actual  deed.  That  is,  it  is  the 
possibility  of  being  morally  Evil  {böse). 

Mere  private  conscience  is  thus  actually  upon  the  very 
threshold  of  changing  into  the  bad.  Both  morality  and  that 


THE  GOOD  AND  CONSCIENCE. 


123 


which  is  morally  bad,  have  their  common  root  in  that  certitude 
of  itself  which  insists  upon  existing,  knowing  and  choosing 
in  an  arbitrarily  independent  way. 

The  origin  of  evil  lies  in  tire  region  of  the  mysterious,  i.  e., 
in  the  speculative  nature  of  freedom.  Freedom  must  neces- 
sarily advance  beyond  the  mere  natural  will,  and  must  put 
itself  in  internal  relation  to  it.  This  naturalness  of  the  will 
comes  into  existence  as  the  contradiction  of  its  very  self, 
and  as  incompatible  with  itself  in  this  opposition.  Thus  it 
is  this  particularity  of  the  will  itself  that  characterizes  itself 
as  the  evil.  There  is  here  an  opposition  of  the  merely 
natural  will  to  the  subjectivity  of  the  will.  In  this  oppo- 
sition, the  subjective  will  is  only  relatively  and  formally 
independent  being,  as  it  can  draw  its  content  only  from  the 
properties  of  the  natural  will,  — from  its  cravings,  instincts, 
inclinations,  etc.  These  latter  may  be  either  good  or  bad. 
But  the  will  having  such  contingent  content,  is  opposed  to 
the  universal,  to  the  good.  Hence  its  internality  is  really 
evil.  Thus  man  is  bad  potentially  or  by  nature,  as  well  as 
through  his  intellectual  advance,  though  neither  mere  nature 
nor  thought,  as  such,  are  in  themselves  bad.  But  this  side 
of  the  necessity  of  evil,  absolutely  implies  that  this  evil  be 
characterized  as  necessarily  that  which  ought  not  to  be,  i.  e., 
that  it  ought  to  be  negated,  not  that  it  should  not  have 
appeared.  This  constitutes  the  distinction  between  the 
irrational  beast  and  man.  It  must  needs  be  that  the  offense 
come,  but  not  that  man  should  hold  to  it,  to  his  own  destruc- 
tion. . . . The  individual  subject  as  such,  is  therefore  abso- 
lutely responsible  for  the  guilt  of  his  own  evil. 

Supplementary.  — Man  has  the  possibility  of  the  good, 
that  is  of  willing  the  universal.  But  he  has  also  the  possi- 
bility of  evil,  that  is  of  identifying  some  particular  form  with 
the  universal.  He  is  thus  good  only  inasmuch  as  he  has 
the  possibility  of  being  bad.  Moral  good  and  evil  are 
inseparable,  through  the  concept  becoming  objective,  and 


124 


MORALITY. 


as  such  having  the  property  of  difference.  The  bad  will 
chooses  something  different  from  the  universal  will,  while 
the  good  will  chooses  what  is  conformable  to  its  genuine 
concept.  . . . But  the  question  of  the  origin  of  evil  relates 
more  strictly  to  the  transition  of  the  positive  into  the  nega- 
tive. If  God  is  held  as  being  Himself  the  absolute  Positive 
(i Gesetzte ) in  the  creation  of  the  world,  there  is  no  possible 
entrance  for  the  negative.  It  would  be  an  unsatisfactory 
and  empty  relation  to  suppose  the  admission  of  the  negative 
by  God.  In  mythology  the  origin  of  evil  is  not  really  com- 
prehended. The  good  and  bad  are  not  recognized  as  having 
any  connection  other  than  an  external  one.  But  this  will  not 
satisfy  thought,  which  demands  to  see  how  the  negative  is 
rooted  in  the  positive.  This  solution  is  contained  in  the  very 
concept,  or  in  its  self-developed  form  of  the  Idea.  The  Idea , 
as  active,  is  essentially  self-distinguishing,  posits  its  other  or 
its  opposite  out  of  itself.  Thus  the  bad  has  its  root  in  the 
self-activity  of  the  will.  The  will,  in  concept,  is  good  as 
well  as  bad.  The  natural  will  is  potentially  this  contra- 
diction ■ — it  must  distinguish  itself  from  itself  in  order  to  be 
developed  and  internal.  The  merely  natural  will  is  opposed 
to  the  contents  of  concrete  freedom.  The  child  and  the 
savage  are  thus  held  to  a less  degree  of  responsibility  than 
the  fully  developed  and  civilized  man. 

The  merely  natural  will,  in  its  naive  state,  is  neither  good 
nor  bad.  It  is  only  when  it  is  brought  into  conscious  relation 
to  the  will  as  freedom,  that  it  gets  the  property  of  being 
that  which  ought  not  to  be  and  thus  becomes  the  morally 
bad.  The  natural  will,  when  still  remaining  in  the  educated, 
civilized  man,  is  no  longer  merely  natural  will,  but  is  an 
element  positively  opposed  to  the  good.  It  is  false  to  say 
that  man  is  without  guilt  when  he  once  sees  that  the  morally 
evil  is  a necessary  element  in  the  concept  of  will,  for  man’s 
own  choice  of  his  deed  is  the  act  of  his  freedom  and  he  is 
responsible  for  it.  It  was  in  man’s  getting  the  knowledge 


THE  GOOD  AND  CONSCIENCE 


I25 


of  good  and  evil  that  he  was  said  to  have  become  like  God. 
But  this  knowledge  of  good  and  evil  is  no  merely  natural 
necessity.  It  is  rather  the  freely  chosen  solution  of  the 
immanent  opposition  of  good  and  evil.  Both  are  present, 
and  I have  the  choice  between  them.  It  is  thus  the  nature 
of  moral  evil  that  it  is  the  choice  of  man,  but  not  that  he 
be  compelled  by  any  natural  necessity  to  choose  it. 

§ 140. 

Self  consciousness  has  the  wisdom  and  power  to  give  its 
aims  external  form.  Every  such  aim  must  have  this  posi- 
tive side,  because  purpose  implies  concrete  external  action. 
Thus  it  is  nominally  for  the  sake  of  a duty  and  a good 
purpose,  that  self-consciousness  is  able  to  maintain  an 
action  as  a good  one,  both  as  regards  one’s  self  and  others, 
though  the  action  be  merely  the  identification  of  an  arbi- 
trary subjective  aim  with  the  true  universal.  If  one  insists 
upon  carrying  out,  under  the  guise  of  duty,  such  a sub- 
jective aim  so  as  to  affect  other  people,  we  have  Hypocrisy. 
If  it  affects  only  the  man  himself,  we  have  the  very 
acme  of  mere  subjectivity  usurping  the  throne  of  the 
Absolute. 

We  call  this  last  and  most  abstruse  form  of  moral  evil  the 
highest  summit  of  subjectivity  on  the  moral  standpoint. 
Here  we  find  the  bad  changing  into  the  good  and  the  good 
into  the  bad,  through  consciousness  knowing  and  insisting 
upon  its  own  power  as  absolute.  This  is  the  form  in  which 
we  meet  with  moral  evil  in  our  day.  Shallow  thought,  in 
the  name  of  philosophy,  has  thus  distorted  a profound 
concept  and  arrogated  the  title  of  the  good  for  the  morally 
bad. 

[Hegel  here  treats  at  some  length  of  the  current  forms  of 
this  false  subjectivity  : 

(a)  There  are  three  phases  in  the  development  of 
hypocrisy : — 


MORALITY. 


126 

(a)  The  knowledge  of  the  true  universal,  either  in  the 
form  of  the  feeling  of  right  and  duty,  or  in  the  form  of 
thorough  knowledge  of  them. 

(ß)  The  choosing  of  something  particular  in  opposition  to 
this  known  universal. 

(y)  The  conscious  choice  of  evil  as  such. 

These  phases  represent  the  acting  with  a bad  conscience, 
rather  than  hypocrisy  as  such.  It  is  a weighty  question 
whether  an  action  is  bad  only  in  so  far  as  it  is  done  with  a 
bad  conscience.  This  is  very  well  expressed  by  Pascal, 
who  says  : ( Les  Provinc.  p lettre').  I/s  seront  tons  damnes  ces 
demi-pecheurs , qui  ont  quelque  amour  pour  la  vertu.  Mais 
pour  ces  francs-pecheurs,  pecheurs  endurcis , pecheurs  sans 
melange , . pi  eins  et  acheves , Venfer  ne  les  tient  pas:  ils  ont 
tromp'e  le  diable  ä force  de  s’y  abandonner } 

The  subjective  right  of  knowing  the  moral  character  of 
one’s  deed,  must  not  be  thought  to  be  in  collision  with 
absolute  objective  right,  in  such  a way  as  to  regard  them  as 
distinct  and  mutually  indifferent  to  each  other.  The  bad  is 
formally  the  very  core  of  the  individual  wrong-doer,  inas- 
much as  it  is  the  assertion  of  absolute  egoism.  Hence,  he 
is  guilty  of  it.  Yet  man  is  inherently  rational,  in  his  capacity 
for  knowing  the  absolutely  universal.  It  would  not  be 
treating  man  in  accordance  with  his  high  capacity,  if  we 
should  not  attribute  his  evil  deed  to  him  as  really  part  of 
his  very  self. 

1 Pascal  refers  to  Christ’s  prayer  on  the  cross  for  the  forgiveness  of 
his  enemies  on  the  ground  that  “ they  know  not  what  they  do.”  This 
would  have  been  a superfluous  prayer  if  their  ignorance  had  changed 
the  character  of  their  deed  so  as  to  make  it  not  to  be  evil  and  thus  not 
to  need  forgiveness.  Pie  also  adduces  Aristotle’s  distinction  as  to  an 
act  being  owe  eiSws  or  ayvoCiv.  The  former  refers  to  ignorance  of 
the  external  conditions.  As  to  the  other  he  says  : “ Every  bad  man  is 
ignorant  of  what  is  to  be  done  and  what  is  left  undone.  And  it  is  just 
this  defect  (dp-apria)  that  makes  men  unjust  and  wicked.  But  such 
ignorance  does  not  make  their  actions  involuntary  (and  not  imputable), 
but  only  makes  them  bad.” 


THE  GOOD  AND  CONSCIENCE. 


127 


( 'b ) But  badness  from  a bad  conscience  is  not  yet  hypo- 
crisy. Hypocrisy  is  rather  the  maintaining  before  others  that 
one’s  bad  deed  is  really  good,  and  the  external  simulation 
of  being  good,  pious,  etc.  — an  artifice  of  fraud  to  deceive 
others.  The  bad  man  can,  moreover,  appeal  to  his  general 
goodness  and  piety  as  grounds  of  self-justification  for  his 
bad  action,  using  them  as  a cloak  for  perverting  the  bad 
into  that  which  is  good  for  himself. 

(y)  To  this  perversion  belongs  that  form  known  as  Proba- 
bilism. Probabilism  maintains  the  principle  that  any  action 
is  permitted  for  which  any  good  reason  may  be  found,  even 
if  this  be  only  the  opinion  of  a learned  Doctor,  however  it 
may  differ  from  the  opinion  of  other  Doctors.  It,  however, 
acknowledges  that  such  an  authority  gives  only  probability, 
though  it  asserts  it  to  be  sufficient  for  quieting  the  con- 
science. It  concedes  that  there  may  be  other  reasons  just 
as  good.  It  also  acknowledges  the  necessity  of  some  ob- 
jective ground  for  right  conduct.  The  decision  as  to  what 
is  good  (or  bad)  is  placed  upon  the  many  good  reasons 
including  those  authorities.  But  these  are  numerous  and 
contradictory.  Hence  it  is  the  arbitrary  choice  of  the  indi- 
vidual which  must  ultimately  decide  the  case.  This  under- 
mines all  ethicality  and  religious  life.  But,  because  Proba- 
bilism does  not  acknowledge  this  choice  of  the  individual 
as  the  ground  of  decision,  it  is  a form  of  hypocrisy. 

( d ) The  next  phase  is  that  which  maintains  that  the  good 
will  consists  in  merely  willing  the  good;  that  all  which  is 
needed  to  make  an  action  good  is  that  one  wills  the  good 
in  general.  But  the  action  has  a content  only  as  far  as  it 
is  a specific  choice.  The  good,  on  the  other  hand,  is  not 
specific,  and  thus  it  is  reserved  to  private  choice  to  give  it 
a content.  In  Probabilism  some  reverend  Father  is  an 
authority.  Here  every  one  has  the  dignity  of  being  an 
authority,  specifying  just  what  is  good.  But  what  one  calls 
good  may  be  only  one  side  of  the  concrete  case,  and  thus 


128 


MORALITY. 


it  may  be  really  bad,  all  things  being  considered.  This  is 
the  phase  of  Intention  previously  considered  (§  119).  Here 
we  have  a conflict  of  qualities  of  a deed,  it  being  good  ac- 
cording to  the  one,  and  bad  according  to  the  other.  Hence 
the  question  arises  whether  the  intention  is  really  good.  But 
the  individual  always  intends  the  good.  The  particular  deed 
intended  is  still  good  (it  is  held),  in  spite  of  some  of  its 
sides  being  criminal  and  bad,- — because  it  was  intended.  If 
the  individual  had  intended  some  one  of  these  bad  sides 
instead  of  the  one  he  did,  it  would  still  have  been  good,  — 
because  intended. 

Theft  and  murder  are  really,  as  deeds,  the  satisfaction 
of  such  a will  as  wills  them.  Thus  they  have  a positive 
side  in  the  will,  and  in  order  to  make  the  deed  good  it  is 
only  necessary  to  intend  the  gratification  of  such  a will. 
Theft  and  flight  from  battle  for  the  sake  of  one’s  life  or 
that  of  his  family,  murderous  revenge  for  one’s  gratification 
of  his  feeling  of  his  own  rights,  killing  a man  because  he 
is  bad,  — all  such  maybe  stamped  as  good  deeds  because 
of  the  good  intention  with  which  they  are  done.  Thus  it 
has  even  been  said  that  there  is  no  really  bad  man,  as  no 
one  ever  wills  the  bad  for  the  sake  of  the  bad,  but  always 
wills  something  positive,  something  which  satisfies  his  will,  — 
something  good.  Thus  we  find  that  all  difference  between 
good  and  evil,  and  all  real  duties,  have  disappeared  in  this 
abstract  good.  Therefore,  to  merely  will  the  good,  or  to 
merely  do  a deed  with  good  intention,  is  rather  evil. 

Here  we  may  consider  the  maxim:  the  end  sanctifies  the 
means.  It  might  be  replied:  certainly  a holy  aim  does,  but 
an  unholy  aim  does  not  sanctify  the  means.  If  the  end  is 
holy,  the  means  are  also  holy.  This  would  be  a tautological 
expression,  if  “means”  were  used  in  its  strict  sense,  that 
is,  if  it  be  strictly  a means.  But  the  real  meaning  of  this 
expression  is  that  even  a bad  “ means,”  yes,  even  a crime, 
is  permissible  or  obligatory  if  it  leads  to  a good  end.  Thou 


THE  GOOD  AND  CONSCIENCE. 


129 


shalt  not  kill,  and  yet  courts  of  justice  and  soldiers  have 
not  only  the  right  but  the  duty  to  kill  men.  But  in  these 
cases  it  is  strictly  defined  as  to  what  kind  of  men  and  under 
what  circumstance  this  is  a right  and  a duty.  Thou  shalt 
preserve  thy  own  life  and  that  of  thy  family.  But  even 
this  duty  is  subordinated  to  a higher  end,  and  thus  reduced 
to  a means.  But  what  is  designated  as  a crime  is  not  an 
indefinite  thing  still  open  to  discussion,  but  has  its  clearly- 
defined  character.  The  sacred  aim  which  is  opposed  to  the 
criminal  means,  is  nothing  more  than  a private  opinion  as 
to  what  is  good  or  better.  Finally,  we  have  mere  private 
opinion  expressly  proclaimed  as  the  rule  of  right  and  duty. 

( e ) That  is  we  have  private  conviction  as  to  what  is  right 
made  the  judge  of  the  ethical  (sittliche)  nature  of  an  act. 
The  good,  which  a man  wills,  has  no  specific  content  as  yet, 
and  the  principle  of  private  conviction  demands  that  the 
individual  subsume  an  act  under  the  character  of  that  which 
is  good  for  himself.  Here  even  the  appearance  of  any 
ethical  objectivity  has  disappeared.  Such  a doctrine  is 
directly  connected  with  the  so-called  philosophy  which  denies 
the  knowableness  of  truth  and  consequently  that  of  ethical 
laws.  As  such  a philosophy  esteems  the  knowableness  of 
truth  to  be  an  empty  conceit,  it  must  make  the  merely  outward 
appearance  of  an  action  the  measure  of  its  truth,  and  con- 
sequently place  the  ethical  in  the  peculiar  world-conception 
and  private  conviction  of  the  individual.  Such  a degraded 
form  of  philosophy  may  seem  to  be  the  idle  talk  of  scholas- 
tics, but  the  evil  of  it  is  that  it  gradually  makes  its  way  into 
ethical  thought  and  then  shows  its  real  baseness.  When 
such  views  as  those  we  have  mentioned  obtain  currency, 
there  is  no  longer  either  vice  or  hypocrisy.  Everything  is 
justified  by  the  intention  and  by  the  outward  appearance.1 

1 I do  not  doubt  but  that  one  may  be  thoroughly  convinced.  But 
how  many  men  undertake  the  worst  crimes  out  of  just  such  felt  convic- 
tions. If  this  ground  were  allowed  there  could  be  no  longer  any 


130 


MORALITY. 


But  the  possibility  of  error  must  sometimes  force  itself 
upon  those  holding  this  principle  of  private  conviction,  and 
thus  give  rise  to  the  demand  for  an  absolute  and  universal 
law.  But  law  does  not  act.  It  is  only  the  real  man  who  acts. 
In  measuring  the  worth  of  a man  the  only  question  is  con- 
cerning how  far  he  has  received  the  law  into  his  heart  and 
mind,  — how  far  his  conviction  has  been  affected  by  it.  But 
if  man’s  actions  are  not  to  be  judged  according  to  that  law 
it  is  hard  to  see  what  purpose  that  law  serves.  Such  a law 
is  degraded  to  a mere  outer  letter,  for  it  is  only  through  my 
conviction  that  it  becomes  a law  binding  me  to  the  obli- 
gatory. Such  a law  may  have  the  authority  of  God,  of  the 
State,  of  millenniums  in  which  it  was  the  bond  uniting  men 
in  all  their  manifold  relations ; and  yet  against  all  these 
authorities  I oppose  the  authority  of  my  subjective  con- 
viction. Such  self-conceit  appears  at  first  as  tremendous, 
and  yet  this  principle  of  private  judgment  which  we  are  here 
considering  justifies  this  conceit.  Shallow  philosophy  and 
bad  sophistry  may  lead  to  such  higher  inconsequence.  And 
if  they  then  admit  the  possibility  of  error,  and  consequently 
of  crime,  they  still  seek  to  reduce  it  to  its  minimum.  For, 
say  they,  to  err  is  human.  Who  has  not  daily  erred  concern- 
ing more  or  less  important  things.  And  yet  even  the  dis- 
tinction between  important  and  unimportant  things  vanishes, 
when  private  conviction  is  considered  to  be  ultimate.  The 
admission  of  the  possibility  of  an  error  is  changed  into  the 
assertion  that  a wrong  conviction  is  only  an  error.  This  is 
but  a step  removed  from  dishonesty.  For  at  one  time  all 
ethicality  and  human  worth  are  placed  in  private  conviction, 
thus  elevating  it  to  the  highest  and  holiest  position.  At 
another  time  private  conviction  is  regarded  as  merely  an 

rational  judgment  as  to  good  and  bad,  right  and  wrong  or  the  noble  and 
ignoble.  Delusion  would  have  equal  right  with  sound  sense.  Reason 
would  have  no  right,  or  validity  — only  the  one  who  doubted  would  be  in 
the  truth.  I shudder  before  the  consequence  of  such  tolerance,  which 
would  be  exclusively  to  the  advantage  of  un-reason.  — Fr.  A.  Jacobi. 


THE  GOOD  AND  CONSCIENCE.  13 1 

error.  In  fact  my  conviction  is  extremely  insignificant.  If 
I cannot  know  anything  true,  then  it  is  a matter  of  indiffer- 
ence how  or  what  I think,  and  there  remains  for  my  thought 
only  that  empty  good  of  the  abstract  understanding. 

Moreover,  there  results  the  consequence  that  others,  who 
act  according  to  their  convictions,  may  regard  my  actions 
(from  conviction)  as  crimes,  and  that  they  are  quite  right  in 
doing  so.  Thus  I am  cast  down  from  the  pinnacle  of  free- 
dom and  honor  into  the  condition  of  slavery  and  dishonor. 
Thus  the  principle  of  private  conviction  (of  others)  meets 
me  as  an  avenging  judge. 

(/)  The  highest  form  of  the  expression  of  this  subjectivity 
(a  term  borrowed  from  Plato,  though  used  in  a different 
way)  is  that  of  Irony.  This  is  the  conviction  not  only  of 
the  unreality  and  vanity  of  all  rights,  laws,  duties  and  vir- 
tues, but  it  is  the  recognition  of  its  own  vanity,  and,  at  the 
same  time,  of  itself,  as  absolute.  The  ego  is  all.  It  has 
become  conscious  of  its  own  utter  emptiness,  and  yet  main- 
tains itself  as  the  ultimate  and  fundamental  reality  in  an 
empty  world.  The  ego  which  creates,  names  and  destroys 
its  own  good  and  evil  has  become  conscious  of  its  own  utter 
invalidity  and  vanity.  Such  Irony  is  only  possible  in  a 
period  of  great  culture,  when  all  earnest  belief  has  vanished 
and  the  vanity  of  vanities  appears  as  the  only  reality.  Here 
there  is  no  real  good  acknowledged,  either  objective  or  sub- 
jective. One’s  own  desires,  aims,  and  good,  are  recognized 
as  equally  invalid  with  current  codes  of  morality,  and  yet 
they  are  deliberately  maintained  as  having  absolute  validity.] 

Transition  from  Morality  to  Ethicality  ( Sittlichkeit ). 

§ 141. 

The  good  is  as  yet  abstract.  But,  as  the  concrete  sub- 
stance of  freedom,  it  demands  determinations  or  qualities  in 
general,  as  well  as  the  principle  of  freedom,  as  identical  with 
the  goad.  Conscience , which  is  yet  only  an  abstract  principle 


J31 2 


MORALITY. 


of  determination,  likewise  demands  that  its  determinations 
be  given  universality  and  objectivity.  We  have  seen  how 
both  good  and  duty,  when  either  of  them  is  raised  to  inde- 
pendent universality,  lack  that  specific  definite  character 
which  they  ought  to  have.  But  the  integration  of  both  the 
good  and  Conscience,  as  relatively  independent,  is  potentially 
accomplished  in  their  organic  unity.  For  we  have  seen  sub- 
jectivity vanishing  into  its  own  emptiness,  already  posited 
(in  the  form  of  pure  self-certitude  or  conscience),  as  identical 
with  the  abstract  universality  of  the  good.  This  integration 
of  the  good  and  Conscience  is  the  real  truth  of  them  both.  It 
is  their  concrete  organic  unity.  This  unity  is  the  sphere  of 
Ethicality , or  the  concrete  ethical  world  of  social  life. 

This  transition  is  more  scientifically  developed  in  the 
Logic.  We  are  here  concerned  with  its  finite  abstract  side, 
i.e.,  with  good  demanding  actualization  and  with  conscience 
demanding  the  good  for  its  content.  But  both  of  these,  as 
yet  partial  phases,  are  not  yet  explicitly  developed  into  that 
which  they  are  potentially.  This  development  of  both  the 
good  and  of  conscience,  so  that  neither  lacks  the  other;  this 
integration  of  both  into  an  organic  unity,  in  which  each  is 
retained  as  a member  rather  than  as  an  independent  thing, 
is  the  realized  Idea  of  the  will.  In  this  each  one  attains  its 
true  reality.  . . . 

We  found  the  first  definite  characteristic  of  the  determi- 
nate being  ( Dasein ) of  freedom  to  be  that  of  Abstract  Right. 
This,  however,  passed  through  the  reflexion  of  self-conscious- 
ness into  the  form  of  the  good.  Here  now  we  have  the  truth 
of  abstract  right  as  well  as  of.  both  the  good  and  conscience. 
The  Ethical  (, Sittliche ) is  subjective  disposition  of  mind,  but 
only  in  reference  to  implicit 1 (an  sich ) rights.  That  this 

1 It  seems  that  Hegel’s  thought  requires  some  other  term  than  im- 
plicit (an  sich)  here.  The  ethical  in  general  has  to  do  with  the  explicit. 

Hegel’s  reference  to  it  here  as  subjective  disposition  in  reference  to 
implicit  rights  is  only  made  in  passing  and  without  further  elucidation, 
and  is  inexplicable. 


THE  GOOD  AND  CONSCIENCE. 


r33 


Idea  is  the  truth  of  the  concept  of  freedom,  cannot  be  merely 
an  accepted  presupposition,  but  must  be  demonstrated  by 
philosophy.  This  demonstration  is  simply  that  of  showing 
how  both  abstract  right  and  conscience  lead  back  into  this 
organic  unity  as  their  truth. 

Supplemeivmry . — Both  the  standpoints  previously  con- 
sidered lack  their  opposites.  Abstract  good  vanishes  into 
perfect  powerlessness,  and  conscience  shrivels  into  objective 
insignificance.  Hence  there  may  arise  a longing  for  objec- 
tivity. A man  would  sometimes  gladly  humble  himself  to 
slavish  dependency  in  order  to  escape  the  torture  and  empti- 
ness of  mere  negativity.  This  accounts  for  the  many  recent 
perversions  to  the  Catholic  Church.  Such  persons  have 
found  no  definite  codes  and  dogmas  within  their  own 
spirit  and  have  reached  out  after  something  stable,  after 
an  authority,  even  if  what  they  obtained  was  devoid  of  the 
substantiality  of  thought.  Ethicality  ( Sittlichkeit ),  or  the 
ethical  world  of  social  life,  is  the  absolute  unity  of  sub- 
jective and  objective  good.  In  this  sphere  is  found  the 
solution  of  the  antinomy  in  strict  accordance  with  the  con- 
cept of  freedom.  Ethicality  is  not  merely  the  subjective 
form  and  the  self-determination  of  the  will,  but  it  has  real 
freedom  for  its  content.  Both  right  and  morality  need  the 
ethical  for  their  foundation,  as  without  it  neither  has  any 
actuality.  Only  the  Idea , the  true  infinite  is  actual.  Rights 
exist  only  as  the  branch,  or  as  a plant  clinging  round  a 
firm  tree. 


THIRD  PART. 


ETHICALITY  (. SITTLICHKEIT ). 

§ 142. 

Ethicality,  or  the  ethical  world  of  concrete  social  life,  is 
the  Idea  of  freedom,  as  the  vital  and  virile  good.  It  is  in 
self-consciousness  that  this  good  attains  to  its  knowledge 
and  volition,  and  through  their  activity  to  its  own  actualiza- 
tion. On  the  other  hand  it  is  in  this  ethical  substance  that 
self-consciousness  has  its  absolute  ground  and  efficient  end. 
Ethicality  is  the  concept  of  freedom,  developed  into  the  present 
existing  world  and  into  the  nature  of  self-consciousness. 

§ 143. 

Since  this  unity  of  the  concept  of  the  will  and  its  determi- 
'nate  being  (Dasein),  which  is  the  particular  will,  is  know- 
ing, the  consciousness  of  the  difference  between  these 
moments  of  the  Idea  is  present,  but  in  such  a manner  that 
now  each  moment  by  itself  is  the  totality  of  the  Idea , and 
has  the  Idea  as  ground  and  contents. 

§ 144. 

(a)  The  objective  ethical  ( objektive  Sittliche),  which  takes 
the  place  of  abstract  good,  is  substance,  concrete  through  its 
subjectivity  as  infinite  form.  This  substance  posits  thence 
differences  in  itself,  which  thereby  are  determined  by  the 
concept,  and  through  which  the  ethical  concept  gains  a 
fixed  content,  which  is  explicitly  necessary  and  elevated 
above  subjective  opinion  and  inclination.  This  content 
consists  of  the  in  and  for  themselves  existing  laws  and 
institutions. 


J36 


E THICA LITY  (. SITTLICHKEIT ). 


Supplementary.  — In  all  ethicality  ( Sittlichkeit ) both  the 
objective  and  the  subjective  moments  are  present ; but  both 
are  its  forms  only.  The  good  is  here  substance,  that  means 
the  filling  up  of  the  objective  with  subjectivity.  When 
ethicality  is  viewed  from  the  objective  standpoint,  it  may  be 
said  that  the  ethical  man  is  unconscious  of  himself.  In  this 
sense,  Antigone  declared  that  no  one  knew  whence  the  laws 
had  come  ; that  they  were  eternal  : that  is  to  say,  they  are 
the  absolutely  independent  realities,  the  determinations 
proceeding  from  the  nature  of  the  case.  But  none  the  less 
this  substantial  has  also  a consciousness,  although  this  con- 
sciousness has  always,  on  this  standpoint,  only  the  position 
of  a phase. 

§ 145. 

In  the  fact  that  the  ethical  is  the  system  of  these  determi- 
nations of  the  Idea , consists  its  rationality.  In  this  manner 
it  becomes  freedom,  or  the  in  and  for  itself  existing  will  as 
the  objective,  the  sphere  of  necessity,  whose  moments  are 
the  ethical  powers  that  rule  the  lives  of  individuals  and 
are  actualized  and  revealed  in  them  as  their  attributes 
( Accidenzen ) and  conceptions. 

Supplementary.  — Since  the  concept  of  freedom  consists  in 
the  ethical  determinations,  these  are  the  substantiality  or 
the  universal  essence  of  the  individuals,  who,  consequently, 
are  related  to  this  universal  factor  as  something  accidental. 
Whether  the  individual  exists  or  not  is  indifferent  to 
objective  ethicality,  which  alone  is  the  enduring  and  the 
power  through  which  the  lives  of  individuals  are  ruled. 
Hence,  ethicality,  or  concrete  morality,  has  been  represented 
to  mankind  as  eternal  justice,  as  gods  existing  in  and  for 
themselves,  against  whom  the  vain  striving  of  the  individuals 
becomes  only  a fluctuating  play. 


E THICA LIT Y (. SITTLICHKEIT ). 


(ß)  The  substance  is,  in  this  its  actual  self-consciousness , 
cognizant  of  itself,  and  hence  object  of  knowledge.  On 
the  one  hand,  by  virtue  of  the  fact  that  they  exist  in  the 
highest  sense  of  independence,  the  ethical  substance,  its 
laws,  and  domination,  have  for  the  subject  an  absolute 
authority  and  force,  infinitely  more  stable  than  the  mere 
being  [das  Seif  of  nature. 

The  sun,  moon,  mountains,  rivers,  objects  of  nature  in 
general,  exist;  they  have  for  consciousness  the  authority 
not  only  of  mere  existence  in  general,  but  also  of  having 
a particular  nature.  Consciousness  respects  this- particular 
nature,  and  is  guided  by  it  when  employed  with  objects  of 
nature.  But  the  authority  of  ethical  laws  is  infinitely  higher, 
since  the  things  in  nature  present  rationality  only  in  a wholly 
external  ( äusserliche ) and  particular  manner,  and  conceal  this 
rationality  under  the  form  of  the  contingent. 

§ 147. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  ethical  substance,  its  laws  and 
authority,  are  nothing  foreign  to  the  subject,  but  they  afford 
the  subject  the  testbnony  of  the  spirit , as  being  of  its  own 
essence , as  that  in  which  it  feels  itself  to  exist  (, Selbstgefühl ), 
and  in  which  it  lives  as  in  its  proper  element,  undifferen- 
tiated from  itself,  — a condition  that  is  unmediated  and  as 
yet  identical,  even  as  faith  and  trust  are. 

Faith  and  trust  belong  to  incipient  reflection,  and  pre- 
suppose a conception  and  differentiation;  as,  for  example, 
believing  in  a heathen  religion  is  different  from  being  a 
heathen.  This  relation,  or  rather  relationless  identity,  in 
which  the  ethical  is  the  actual  vitality  of  self-consciousness, 
can  under  all  circumstances  resolve  itself  into  a relation  of 
faith  and  conviction,  and  into  something  mediated  by  further 
reflection,  into  insight  founded  on  reasons.  This  insight 


138  E TH1CALITY  (. SITTLICHKEIT ). 

may  also  begin  from  any  particular  aims,  interests  or  con- 
siderations, from  fear  or  hope,  or  from  historical  antecedents. 
But  its  adequate  recognition  belongs  to  the  thinking  con- 
cept. 

§ 148. 

For  the  individual,  who  distinguishes  himself  from  these 
substantial  determinations  as  the  subjective  and  in  himself 
indeterminate,  or  as  the  particularly  determined,  and  to 
whom  they  hence  stand  in  the  relation  of  substance,  these 
substantial  determinations  become  duties  which,  in  relation 
to  his  will,  are  obligatory. 

The  ethical  doctrine  of  duties  (that  is,  as  it  is  objectively , 
and  not  as  conceived  according  to  the  empty  principle  of 
moral  subjectivity,  according  to  which,  indeed,  nothing 
determines  it  [§134])  is,  consequently,  the  systematic  devel- 
opment of  the  sphere  of  ethical  necessity.  This  forms  the 
content  of  this  Part  Third  of  this  treatise.  The  difference 
of  this  presentation  from  the  form  of  a doctrine  of  duties  con- 
sists in  this  alone,  that,  in  what  follows,  the  ethical  deter- 
minations present  themselves  as  necessary  relations,  without 
any  further  consequence  being  added  to  each  of  them. 
Hence  this  determination  is  a duty  for  man.  A doctrine  of 
duties,  when  not  a philosophical  science,  takes  its  subject- 
matter  from  conditions  and  relations  contingently  presented, 
and  shows  their  connection  with  individual  conceptions, 
with  those  principles  and  thoughts,  aims,  motives,  feelings, 
and  the  like,  which  are  generally  entertained,  and  can  add 
as  reasons  the  further  consequence  of  each  duty  in  reference 
to  other  ethical  relations,  as  well  as  in  reference  to  common 
welfare  and  opinion.  But  an  immanent  and  consistent 
doctrine  of  duties  can  be  nothing  else  than  the  evolution  of 
those  relations  which  become  necessary  through  the  Idea  of 
freedom,  and  hence  actual  throughout  their  whole  extent, 
in  the  State. 


E THICALITY  (. SITTLICHKEIT ). 


r39 


§ 149. 

Obligatory  duty  can  appear  as  a limitation , only  to 
undetermined  subjectivity  or  abstract  freedom,  and  to  the 
desires  of  the  natural  will,  or  to  that  moral  will  which  deter- 
mines its  indeterminate  good  through  its  own  caprice.  But 
the  individual  has  in  duty  rather  his  liberation , on  the  one 
hand,  from  the  dependence  imposed  on  him  when  under 
the  influence  of  natural  desires  alone,  as  well  as  from  the 
oppression  which  he  suffers  as  subjective  particularity  in 
the  moral  reflexion  as  to  what  ought  and  what  may  be 
done  ; and,  on  the  other  hand,  from  the  undetermined  sub- 
jectivity which  does  not  express  itself  and  thus  attain  the 
objective  characteristics  of  action,  but  remains  in  itself  as  a 
non-actuality.  In  duty  the  individual  shakes  off  subjective 
fetters  and  attains  substantial  freedom. 

Supplementary.- — Duty  limits  only  the  caprice  of  subjec- 
tivity, and  comes  in  conflict  only  with  the  abstract  good  to 
which  subjectivity  clings.  When  men  say,  “We  wish  to  be 
free,”  this  means  at  first  only,  “We  wish  to  be  free  in  an 
abstract  sense,”  i.  e.,  free  from  objective  laws.  Hence 
every  determination  and  organic  differentiation  in  the  State 
is  held  to  be  a limitation  of  this  freedom.  Duty  is  not  a 
limitation,  or  restriction  of  freedom  but  of  the  abstraction 
of  freedom,  that  is  to  say,  of  the  opposite  to  freedom  : duty 
is  the  arrival  of  freedom  at  determinate  being,  the  gaining 
of  affirmative  freedom. 


§ 150. 

The  ethical,  in  so  far  as  it  reflects  itself  in  the  individual 
character,  as  such  is  determined  by  nature,  is  virtue. 

Inasmuch  as  this  shows  itself  as  nothing  but  the  simple 
conformity  of  the  individual  to  the  duties  of  the  situation  in 
which  he  finds  himself,  virtue  is  rectitude. 


140 


ETHICALITY  (. SITTLICHKEIT ). 


What  man  should  do,  what  duties  he  must  fulfil  in  order 
to  be  virtuous,  is  easily  determined  in  an  ethical  community. 
There  is  nothing  else  for  him  to  do  than  that  which  is  pre- 
scribed, proclaimed  and  made  known  to  him  in  his  ethical 
relations.  Rectitude  is  the  universal,  that  which  can  be 
promoted  in  him  partly  as  the  ethical  and  partly  as  the 
legally  right.  But  for  the  moral  standpoint,  rectitude  easily 
appears  as  something  subordinate,  over  and  above  which 
one  must  demand  something  still  more  in  one’s  self  and 
others.  The  desire  to  be  something  particular  is  not  satisfied 
with  conformity  to  the  universal  and  objective  forms  of  duty 
as  existing  in  the  current  conventional  morals.  Such  a 
desire  finds  only  in  an  exception  the  consciousness  of  the 
desired  peculiarity.  The  different  sides  of  rectitude  may  just 
as  properly  be  called  virtues,  since  they  are  just  as  much  the 
property  (though  in  the  comparison  with  others,  not  the 
particular  property)  of  the  individual. 

But  discourse  about  virtue  borders  easily  on  empty  decla- 
mation, since  it  treats  only  of  an  abstract  and  indefinite 
matter.  Such  discourse  with  its  reasons  and  manner  of 
presentation  also  appeals  to  the  individual,  as  to  a being  of 
caprice  and  subjective  inclination.  In  an  ethical  condition 
of  society,  whose  relations  are  fully  developed  and  actual- 
ized, such  peculiar  forms  of  virtue  have  a place  and  actuality 
only  in  extraordinary  circumstances  and  collisions  of  these 
relations  — that  is,  in  actual  collisions , for  moral  reflection 
can,  indeed  find  collisions  under  any  circumstances,  and 
obtain  for  itself  the  consciousness  of  having  made  sacri- 
fices and  of  being  something  particular  and  peculiar.  For 
this  reason  this  form  of  virtue  as  such  occurs  oftener  in 
undeveloped  states  of  society  and  of  the  community.  In 
such  earlier  stages  the  ethical  and  its  actualization  is  more 
of  an  individual  choice  and  a genial  nature  peculiar  to 
the  individual.  The  ancients,  we  know,  predicated  virtue 
especially  of  Hercules.  In  the  ancient  state  however, 


ETHICALITY  (. SITTLICHKEIT ).  141 

ethicality  had  not  grown  to  this  free  system  of  an  independ- 
ent development  and  objectivity  — thus  the  deficiency  had 
to  be  supplied  by  the  geniality  of  the  individual. 

The  doctrine  of  virtues,  when  not  simply  a doctrine  of 
particular  duties,  includes  the  character  which  is  founded  in 
natural  determinations.  Thus  it  embraces  a spiritual  history 
of  the  natural  man. 

Since  the  virtues  are  the  ethical  in  reference  to  the  par- 
ticular, and  from  this  subjective  side  something  undetermined, 
the  quantitative  “more”  or  “less”  appears  as  their  deter- 
mination ; and  their  contemplation  brings  up  the  opposite 
defects  as  vice.  Thus  Aristotle  determined  the  correct 
signification  of  the  particular  virtues  as  the  mean  between 
a too-much  and  a too-little.  The  same  content  which  takes 
the  form  of  duties  and  then  that  of  virtues,  has  also  the 
form  of  impulses.  These,  also,  have  the  same  fundamental 
content.  But  since  this  content  of  the  impulses  belongs  still 
to  the  immediate  will  and  the  natural  sensibilities,  and  has 
not  been  developed  to  the  determination  of  ethicality,  the 
impulses  have  only  the  abstract  object  in  common  with 
the  content  of  duties  and  virtues.  But  this  abstract  object, 
being  without  determination  in  itself,  does  not  contain  the 
limits  of  good  and  evil  in  itself.  In  other  words,  the  im- 
pulses are  good  according  to  the  abstraction  of  the  positive, 
and  conversely  bad,  according  to  the  abstraction  of  the 
negative  (§  18). 

Supplementary.  — Where  a person  does  this  or  that  ethic- 
ally good  act,  he  is  not  straightway  virtuous,  but  this  he 
is  when  ethical  behavior  is  a stable  element  in  his  character. 
Virtue  is  rather  ethical  virtuosoship.  The  reason  that  we 
do  not  speak  so  much  of  virtue  now  as  formerly,  is  that 
ethicality  is  no  longer  so  much  some  peculiar  quality  of  a 
particular  individual  as  formerly.  The  French  are,  in  the 
main,  the  people  who  speak  most  of  virtue,  because  among 
them  the  individual  is  considered  rather  as  something  pecu- 


142 


E THICALITY  (. SITTLICHKEIT ). 


liar,  and  as  having  a natural  (i.  e.,  not  yet  ethical)  manner 
of  action.  The  Germans,  on  the  contrary,  are  more  thought- 
ful, and  among  them  the  same  content  gains  the  form  of 
universality. 

§ 151. 

But  in  the  simple  identity  with  the  actuality  of  individuals, 
the  ethical  appears  as  their  common  manner  of  acting,  as 
custom.  This  habitual  manner  of  acting  becomes  a second 
nature , which  takes  the  place  of  that  which  at  first  is  simply 
natural  will.  It  becomes  the  penetrating  soul,  meaning, 
and  actuality  of  its  existence,  the  living  and  present  spirit 
as  a world,  whose  substance  first  then  exists  as  spirit. 

Supplementary.  — As  nature  has  her  laws,  as  the  animal, 
the  trees,  the  sun,  fulfil  their  law,  so  also  is  custom  the  law 
belonging  to  the  spirit  of  freedom.  That  which  legal  right 
and  morality  have  not  yet  attained,  that  custom  is,  namely, 
spirit.  For  in  legal  right  the  particularity  is  not  yet  that  of 
the  concept,  but  only  that  of  the  natural  will.  Likewise, 
at  the  stage  of  morality,  self-consciousness  is  not  yet  spiritual 
consciousness.  The  question  is,  then,  only  concerning  the 
worth  of  the  subject  in  himself  ; that  is  to  say,  the  subject 
which  determines  himself  in  accordance  with  the  good 
against  the  evil,  has  still  the  form  of  arbitrariness.  On  the 
other  hand,  at  the  ethical  stage,  the  will  is  the  will  of  the 
spirit  and  has  a substantial  content  adequate  unto  itself. 
Pedagogy  is  the  art  of  making  men  ethical : it  considers 
man  as  a merely  natural  being  — it  shows  the  way  to  a new 
birth,  how  to  convert  his  first  nature  into  a second  spiritual 
1 nature,  so  that  this  spiritual  becomes  a habit  in  him.  In 
this  habit  the  opposition  of  the  natural  and  subjective  will 
disappears  and  the  struggle  of  the  subject  is  broken.  Thus 
habit  belongs  to  ethicality  to  the  same  extent  as  to  philo- 
sophic thought,  for  the  latter  demands  that  the  spirit  shall  be 
cultured  so  as  to  be  opposed  to  arbitrary  notions,  and  that 


E THICALITY  (. SITTLICHKEIT ). 


J4  3 


these  shall  be  crushed  and  conquered,  in  order  that  rational 
thought  have  free  course. 

But  man  also  dies  of  habit,  that  is,  he  is  dead  when  he 
has  fully  habituated  himself  to  life,  when  he  has  become 
spiritually  and  physically  obtuse,  and  when  the  opposition 
belonging  to  subjective  consciousness  and  spiritual  activity 
has  disappeared.  For  man  is  active  only  as  long  as  there  is 
is  something  he  has  not  attained,  in  reference  to  which  he 
wishes  to  be  productive  and  effective.  When  this  is  accom- 
plished, virile  activity  and  vitality  ( Lebendigkeit ),  disappear, 
and  the  absence  of  interest  that  then  ensues  is  spiritual 
or  even  physical  death. 

§ 152. 

In  this  manner,  ethical  substantiality  comes  to  its  right 
and  this  right  gains  its  realization.  For  the  self-will  and 
independent  conscience  of  the  individual,  which  existed 
as  for  itself  only  and  produced  an  opposition  against  the 
concrete  ethical  life,  disappear,  when  the  ethical  character 
recognizes  as  its  motive  and  end  ( bewegende  Zweck ) the  un- 
moved universal  that  has  been  reduced  by  its  determina- 
tions to  actual  rationality ; and  when  this  ethical  character 
recognizes  its  value,  as  well  as  the  persistence  ( Bestehen ) of 
particular  ends,  as  being  grounded  and  having  its  actuality 
in  this  determined  universal.  Subjectivity  is  the  absolute 
for?n  itself  and  the  existing  actuality  of  substance.  The 
distinction  of  the  subject  from  substance,  viewed  as  the 
objects,  ends,  and  power  of  the  subject,  is  nothing  but  the 
likewise  immediately  ( unmittelbar , i.  e.,  not  mediately)  van- 
ished distinction  of  form. 

Subjectivity,  which  is  the  ground  of  existence  for  the  con- 
cept of  freedom  (§  106)  and  which,  on  the  moral  standpoint, 
is  still  differentiated  from  said  concept,  becomes,  in  the 
ethical  sphere,  the  adequate  existence  of  the  concept  of 
freedom. 


144 


ETHICALITY  (. SITTLICHKEIT ). 


§ 153. 

The  right  of  individuals  to  their  subjective  determination  of 
freedom  has  its  realization  in  the  fact  that  they  belong  to 
ethical  reality,  inasmuch  as  the  certitude  of  their  freedom 
has  its  truth  in  such  objectivity,  and  they  (the  individuals) 
actually  possses  in  the  ethical  sphere  their  essential  being 
( Wesen)  and  their  inner  universality  (§  147). 

To  a father  who  asked  how  he  might  best  bring  up  his 
son,  a Pythagorean  (it  is  also  attributed  to  others)  answered: 
“By  making  him  the  citizen  of  a state  with  good  laws.” 

Supplementary.  — The  pedagogical  attempt  to  keep  pupils 
away  from  the  common  (i.  e.,  communal)  life  of  the  present, 
and  to  bring  them  up  in  the  country  (Rousseau  in  “ Emile  ”) 
has  been  a vain  experiment,  for  to  estrange  men  from  the 
laws  of  the  world  cannot  prove  a success.  Even  if  youth 
is  educated  in  solitude,  it  is  certainly  unwarranted  to  think 
that  no  fragrant  breeze  from  the  spirit-world  should  ever 
invade  this  solitude,  and  that  the  power  of  the  world-spirit 
is  too  weak  to  take  possession  of  this  little  separated  terri- 
tory. When  he  is  the  citizen  of  a good  state , the  individual 
first  gains  his  just  rights. 

“ The  realm  of  morality  ( Sittlichkeit ) is  nothing  but  the 
absolute  spiritual  unity  of  the  essence  of  individuals,  which 
exists  in  their  independent  reality.  . . . This  moral  sub- 
stance, looked  at  abstractly  from  the  mere  side  of  its  uni- 
versality, is  the  law  as  the  expression  of  such  thought.  But 
from  another  point  of  view  it  is  also  immediate  actual  self- 
consciousness  as  custom.  On  the  other  hand,  the  individual 
consciousness  exists  as  a unitary  member  of  the  universal 
consciousness.  Its  action  and  existence  are  the  universal 
custom  ( Sitte  or  Wo%),  in  which  it  lives  and  moves  and  has 
its  being.  . . . 

“Any  merely  particular  action  or  business  of  the  individual 
relates  to  the  needs  of  himself  as  a natural  being.  But 


ETHICALITY  (. SITTLICHKEIT ) 


!4S 


these,  his  commonest  functions,  are  saved  from  nothingness 
and  given  reality  solely  by  the  universal  maintaining  medium, 
that  is,  through  the  power  of  the  whole  people  of  which 
he  is  a member.  It  is  this  power,  too,  which  gives  content 
as  well  as  form  to  his  actions.  What  he  does  is  the  uni- 
versal skill  and  custom  of  all.  Just  so  far  as  this  content 
completely  individualizes  itself,  is  its  reality  inwoven  with 
the  activity  of  all.  The  labor  of  the  individual  for  his  own 
wants  is  at  the  same  time  a satisfying  of  the  needs  of  others, 
and  reciprocally  the  satisfaction  of  his  own  needs  is  attained 
only  through  the  labor  of  others.  Thus  the  individual  un- 
consciously does  an  universal  work  in  doing  his  own  indi- 
vidual work.  But  he  also  does  this  consciously.  The  whole, 
as  his  object,  is  that  for  which  he  sacrifices  himself,  and 
through  which  sacrifice  he  fulfils  himself.  Here  there  is 
nothing  but  what  is  reciprocal;  nothing  even  in  the  appar- 
ently negative  activity  of  the  independent  individual,  but  such 
as  enables  him  to  attain  the  positive  significance  of  independ- 
ent being.  This  unity,  which  throbs  through  both  the  nega- 
tion and  the  affirmation  of  the  individual,  speaks  its  universal 
language  in  the  common  custom  and  laws  of  his  people. 
Yet  this  unchanging  essence,  — the  spirit  of  his  people, — 
is  itself  simply  the  expression  of  the  single  individuality 
which  seems  to  be  opposed  to  it.  The  laws  proclaim  what 
each  one  is  and  does.  The  individual  recognizes  this  essence 
as  not  only  his  universal  outward  existence,  but  also  as  that 
which  is  particularized  in  his  own  individuality  and  in  that 
of  fellow-citizens.  Hence  each  one  has  in  this  universal 
spirit  nothing  else  than  assurance  of  himself,  and  finds  in 
existing  reality  nothing  but  himself.  In  it  I behold  only 
independent  beings  like  myself.  In  them  I see  the  free 
unity  of  self  with  others,  which  exists  through  others  as  it 
does  through  me.  I see  them  as  myself  and  myself  as  them 
in  this  free  unity  or  universal  substance.  Thus  reason  is 
realized  in  truth  in  the  life  of  a free  people.  It  is  present, 


146 


£7HJCAL1TY  {SITTLICHKEIT). 


'.’  .•ini:  spirit,  in  which  the  individual  not  only  finds  his  char- 
acter. . ..  universal  and  particular  essence,  proclaimed  and 
prepared  ready  to  hand,  but  also  hnds  that  he  himself  is  this 
essence,  and  has  attained  his  definite  character.  Hence 
the  wisest  men  of  antiquity  have  proclaimed  the  maxim: 
that  wisdom  and  virtue  consist  in  living  in  harmonv  with 
the  Ires  morals  of  one's  own  people."1 


§ 154. 

The  right  of  individuals  to  special  characteristics,  is  con- 
tained in  ethical  substantiality,  since  particularity  is  the 
manner  of  the  external  appearance  in  which  the  ethical 
exists. 

§ 155. 

In  this  identity  of  the  universal  and  particular  will.  ,:h/v 
and  -vglr  consequently  coincide,  and  man  has  in  the  ethical 
sphere  duties  to  the  same  extent  as  rights,  and  rights  to  the 
same  extent  as  duties.  In  abstract  legal  right,  the  op  has 
the  right  and  another  has  the  dun- : in  the  moral  sphere, 
only  the  right  of  my  own  knowledge  and  will,  together  with 
my  welfare  united  with  duty,  are  demanded. 

— The  slave  can  have  no  duties,  for  duties 
belong  to  the  free  man  alone.  If  all  rights  were  on  one  side 
and  all  duties  on  the  other,  the  whole  'das  G would 
dissolve,  for  identity  alone  is  the  foundation  which  we  here 
must  hold  fast. 


§ 156. 

The  ethical  substance,  as  containing  the  independent  self- 
consciousness  that  coincides  with  its  concept,  is  the  actual 
spirit  of  a family  and  a people. 

1 Hegel's  £r.i:  vrV  S.s  (hvav.  pp.  r;6-S.  cf.  Bradley's  Etc::£ 

Studies,  pp.  167-S. 


ETHICALITY  (SITTLICHKEIT). 


!47 


Supplementary.  — - The  ethical  is  not  abstract  like  the  good, , 
but  is,  in  an  intensive  sense,  actual.  The  spirit  has  actuality, 
and  individuals  are  the  accidents  of  this  actuality.  Conse- 
quently, in  the  ethical  sphere,  there  are  only  two  points 
of  view  possible  : either  to  start  from  substantiality,  or  to 
proceed  in  an  atomistic  manner  and  rise  from  individuality 
as  foundation.  But  the  latter  point  of  view  is  spiritless, 
since  it  leads  only  to  a conglomeration  ; for  the  spirit  is 
nothing  individual,  but  it  is  the  unity  of  the  individual  and 
universal. 


§ 157. 

The  concept  of  this  Idea  is  only  spirit,  self-knowledge,  and 
actuality,  when  it  is  the  objectification  of  itself,  the  move- 
ment through  the  form  of  its  moments.  It  is,  therefore  : 

(a)  The  immediated,  or  natural  ethical  spirit  ; — the 
family. 

This  substantiality  changes  at  the  loss  of  its  unity  into 
that  of  separation  (of  the  members  of  the  family)  and  to  the 
standpoint  of  the  relative,  thus  becoming, 

(b)  The  civic  community , a union  of  the  members  as 
independent  individuals  (i.  e.,  as  private  persons)  in  a formal 
universality,  through  their  needs,  and  through  the  legal  con- 
stitution as  a means  for  the  safety  of  persons  and  property, 
and  through  an  external  order  for  their  individual  and  com- 
mon interests.  This  external  state  centers  itself  together 

(c)  In  the  end  and  actuality  of  the  substantial  universal, 
and  of  the  public  life  devoted  to  the  common  weal  — in  the 
constitution  of  the  State. 


148 


ETHICALITY  (. SITTLICHKEIT ). 


FIRST  SECTION. 

The  Family. 

§ 158. 

The  family,  as  the  unmediated  substantiality  of  the  spirit 
has  its  emotional  sense  of  unity,  love , for  its  characteristic  ; 
so  that  the  disposition  is  to  have  the  self-consciousness 
of  one’s  individuality  in  this  unity  as  in  an  independent 
essentiality,  in  order  to  be  united  to  the  family  not  as  a 
person  for  himself,  but  as  a member. 

Supplementary.  — Love  means  in  general  the  conscious- 
ness of  my  unity  with  another  ; so  that  I do  not  remain 
isolated  for  myself,  but  gain  my  self-consciousness  only  as 
the  renunciation  of  my  exclusive  independence  (Fursich- 
seins),  and  thereby  know  myself  as  the  unity  of  myself  with 
the  other  and  of  the  other  with  me.  But  love  is  feeling, 
that  is,  it  is  ethicality  in  the  primitive  natural  form.  In  the 
State  we  do  not  find  love. ; there  one  is  conscious  of  the 
unity  as  the  unity  of  laza,  there  the  content  must  be  rational 
and  I must  know  it.  The  first  phase  of  love  is  that  I wish 
not  to  be  an  independent  person  for  myself,  and  that,  if  I 
am,  I feel  myself  defective  and  incomplete.  The  second 
phase  is  that  I win  myself  in  another  person,  that  I am 
recognized  in  him  as  he  is  in  me.  Love  is,  hence,  a most 
monstrous  contradiction  to  the  understanding,  which  it  can 
not  solve,  since  nothing  harder  is  found  than  this  punctili- 
ousness of  self-consciousness  which  is  denied,  and  which  I 
am  still  said  to  have  affirmed.  But  love  is  at  once  the 
source  and  the  solution  of  the  contradiction  ; as  solution 
it  is  ethical  concord. 

§ 159. 

The  right  which  belongs  to  the  individual  on  the  ground 
of  family-unity,  and  which  at  first  is  his  life  in  this  unity 


THE  FAMILY. 


149 


itself,  appears  only  in  the  form  of  (legal)  rights  as  of  the 
abstract  phase  of  the  determined  individuality , when  once 
dissolution  of  the  family  takes  place.  Here,  those  who 
have  been  its  members,  become  independent  persons  in 
their  disposition  and  actuality,  and  receive  separately  (and 
consequently  in  an  external  way,  as  wealth,  support,  cost  of 
education,  and  the  like)  that  which  they  obtained  in  the 
family  as  their  natural  heritage. 

Supplementary.  — The  right  of  the  family  consists  properly 
in  this  : that  its  substantiality  shall  have  determinate  exist- 
ence ( Dasein ).  Consequently,  it  is  a right  against  any 

external  impediments,  and  against  secession  from  this  unity. 
But  on  the  contrary,  again,  love  is  a feeling,  a subjective 
affair,  against  which  the  unity  ( Einigkeit ) cannot  make  itself 
effective.  Hence,  when  unity  is  to  be  promoted  it  can  be 
done  only  by  the  agency  of  such  things  which,  according  to 
their  nature, are  external  and  not  dependent  on  feeling. 

§ 160. 

The  family  consummates  itself  on  three  sides  : 

( a ) In  the  form  of  its  immediate  concept,  as  wedlock. 

{IP)  In  external  existence  ( Dasein ),  in  the  property  and 
goods  of  the  family,  and  in  the  care  of  the  same. 

(r)  In  the  bringing  up  of  the  children  and  the  dissolution 
of  the  family. 

A.  Wedlock. 

§ 161. 

Wedlock  contains,  as  the  inwicdiate  ethical  relation,  first  the 
moment  of  natural  vitality  (Lebendigkeit),  and,  indeed,  as 
substantial  relation,  life  in  its  totality,  viz.,  as  actuality  of 
the  species  and  its  process.  But,  secondly  in  self-conscious- 
ness the  implicitly  existing  unity  of  the  natural  sexes,  which 
for  that  reason  is  only  an  external  unity,  is  transformed  into 
a spiritual  one,  into  self-conscious  love. 


JS0 


E THICALITY  (. SITTLICHKEIT ). 


Supplementary.  — Wedlock  is  essentially  an  ethical  relation. 
Formerly,  especially  in  most  treatises  on  natural  rights,  it 
has  been  considered  only  from  the  physical  side,  from  what 
it  is  on  its  merely  natural  side.  Hence  it  has  been  con- 
sidered as  a sexual  relation  only,  and  has  remained  closed  in 
every  way  to  the  other  characteristics  of  wedlock.  But  it  is 
just  as  crude  to  conceive  wedlock  as  nothing  but  a civil  con- 
tract, a conception  that  occurs  even  with  Kant,  for  then  the 
mutual  arbitrary  choice  makes  a compact  for  the  individuals, 
and  wedlock  is  degraded  to  an  ordinary  mutual  contract. 
A third  conception,  just  as  reprehensible,  is  to  hold  that 
wedlock  is  founded  on  love  alone.  For  love,  being  a feeling, 
is  always  open  to  chance  — a form  which  the  ethical  must 
not  have.  Hence  wedlock  is  more  closely  determined  as 
legally  ethical  love.  With  this  determination,  the  transient, 
capricious  and  subjective  in  the  concept  of  wedlock 
disappear. 

§ 162. 

As  the  subjective  point  of  inception  for  wedlock,  either 
the  particular  inclination  of  the  two  persons  entering  the 
relation,  or  the  plans  and  arrangements  of  the  parents,  etc., 
appear  the  more  prominent.  The  objective  point  of  incep- 
tion is  the  free  consent  of  the  persons  in  question,  a consent, 
indeed,  to  be  henceforth  one  person,  to  resign  their  natural 
and  individual  personality  for  this  unity.  This  is  a self- 
limitation in  this  respect,  but  also,  since  in  it  they  gain  their 
substantial  self-consciousness,  it  is  their  liberation.  It  is 
therefore  the  objective  destiny  and  ethical  duty  of  man  to 
enter  the  state  of  wedlock.  As  to  the  matter  of  the  external 
point  of  inception  of  wedlock,  it  is,  according  to  its  nature, 
accidental,  and  depends  especially  on  the  culture  of  reflection. 
The  two  extremes  are  : either  the  arrangements  of  well- 
meaning  parents  is  the  first  step,  and,  as  a result  of  the 
prearranged  acquaintance,  an  inclination  arises  in  the  persons 


THE  FAMILY. 


ISI 

who  are  being  selected  for  each  other  for  the  union  of  love  ; 
or  the  inclination  appears  first  in  the  persons  in  question,  as 
diversely  constituted  as  they  may  be.  The  former  extreme, 
or  in  general,  the  way  in  which  the  resolve  to  marry  takes  its 
beginning,  and  has  the  inclination  as  a result  so  that  at  the 
actual  marriage  both  are  united,  may  be  considered  the  more 
ethical  way.  In  the  other  extreme,  the  infinitely  particular 
individuality  gets  its  pretensions  recognized  and  is  connected 
with  the  subjective  principle  of  the  modern  world.  (See 
above  § 124.)  But  in  modern  dramas  and  other  produc- 
tions of  art,  where  sexual  love  is  the  fundamental  interest, 
there  is  an  element  of  penetrating  chilliness.  In  the  heart 
of  the  passion  presented,  through  the  thorough  arbitrariness 
connected  with  the  same,  this  chilliness  is  brought  about  by 
presenting  the  whole  interest  as  depending  on  these  (persons) 
alone,  when,  indeed,  it  may  be  of  infinite  importance  for 
them  but  is  not  of  such  interest  when  in  its  merely  natural 
form. 

Supplementary.  — In  nations  where  the  feminine  sex  is 
less  respected,  the  parents  arrange  marriage  as  they  please, 
without  consulting  the  individuals  in  question,  and  these  are 
content  with  this  arrangement,  since  any  special  definite 
direction  of  sentiment  has  as  yet  no  pretensions.  The 
maiden  desires  a husband,  and  he  a wife  in  general  (/.  e., 
without  caring  for  more  particular  characteristics  of  the 
desired  consort).  In  other  states  of  society,  considerations 
of  fortune,  connections,  and  political  ends  may  be  the  de- 
termining factors.  Here  great  hardships  are  possible,  since 
wedlock  is  made  a means  for  other  ends.  In  modern  times, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  subjective  point  of  inception  (falling 
in  love)  has  come  to  be  considered  the  only  one  of  import- 
ance. The  moderns  imagine  that  each  must  wait  till  his 
hour  has  struck,  and  that  each  can  give  his  love  only  to  one 
certain  individual. 


IS2 


ETHICALITY  (. SITTLICHKEIT ). 


§ 163. 

The  ethical,  in  wedlock,  consists  in  the  consciousness  of 
this  unity  as  a substantial  end  in  love,  in  trust,  and  in  the 
community  of  the  whole  individual  existence. 

In  this  disposition  and  actuality,  the  natural  sexual  im- 
pulse is  reduced  to  a mere  phase  of  nature,  which  perishes 
in  the  instant  of  its  gratification.  Meanwhile  the  spiritual 
bond,  in  its  right  as  the  substantial  essence  of  wedlock, 
elevated  above  the  caprice  of  passion  and  of  temporal  and 
particular  liking,  becomes  potentially  indissoluble. 

That  wedlock  is  not  a contract-relation  as  to  its  essential 
foundation,  has  already  been  noted  (§  75),  for,  from  the 
standpoint  of  contract,  which  starts  from  the  abstract  per- 
sonality of  independent  individuals,  wedlock  is  a contract 
to  pass  out  of  and  above  the  sphere  of  contract.  The 
identification  of  the  personalities,  through  which  the  family 
is  one  person , and  its  members  properties,  is  the  ethical 
spirit. 

It  is  this  ethical  (social)  spirit  which,  stripped  of  the 
manifold  externality  which  belongs  to  spirit  in  the  form 
of  a definite  individual  and  in  special  temporal  and  well- 
defined  secular  interests,  that  is  sometimes  elevated  into  a 
pictorial  conception  and  honored  as  the  penatcs  and  the  like, 
and,  in  general,  gives  to  wedlock  and  the  family  its  piety  (in 
the  Roman  sense  of  the  word)  and  its  religious  character. 
It  is  a further  abstraction  when  the  divine,  the  substantial 
in  this  phase  of  sentiment  is  separated  from  its  proper  sexual 
side,  and  from  the  feeling  and  the  consciousness  of  spiritual 
unity,  and  falsely  given  a separate  existence  as  Platonic  love. 
This  separation  is  connected  with  the  monkish  view,  accord- 
ing to  which  the  phase  of  natural  life  is  determined  as  some- 
thing absolutely  negative,  ahd  just  through  this  is  falsely 
given  an  infinite  importance  for  itself. 


THE  FAMILY. 


*53 


§ 164. 

As  the  stipulation  of  contract  already  contains  for  itself 
the  true  transference  of  property  (§  79),  so  the  solemn 
( feierliche ) declaration  of  agreement  to  accept  the  ethical 
bonds  of  wedlock  and  the  corresponding  recognition  and 
sanction  of  the  same  by  the  family  and  community  (that  the 
church  also  enters  as  a further  party  to  the  union  is  not  to 
be  fully  considered  here),  are  the  formal  conclusion  and  actual- 
izing of  wedlock.  Hence  this  alliance  is  ethically  constituted 
only  when  preceded  by  this  ceremony,  as  the  performance  of 
its  substantial  essence,  through  sign  and  language,  as  the 
outward  and  visible  form  of  the  spiritual  (§  78).  Thereby 
the  sensuous  sexual  element  belonging  to  natural  life,  re- 
ceives, in  its  ethical  relation,  the  position  of  a consequence 
(Folge)  and  accidentality,  which  belongs  to  the  external  form 
of  the  ethical  alliance.  But  the  meaning  of  this  alliance 
itself  can  be  exhausted  only  in  that  of  mutual  love  and 
support.  . . . 

[Hegel  further  insists,  in  this  paragraph,  upon  the  neces- 
sity of  the  sacred  solemnization  of  marriage,  rather  than 
degrading  the  ceremony  to  the  mechanical  work  of  a civil 
or  ecclesiastical  clerk,  who  performs  it  without  any  sense 
of  its  ethical  significance.  This  is  only  rightly  appreciated 
and  honored  by  the  sentiment  and  ceremonies  of  religious 
people.  Wedlock  has  both  great  intellectual  and  ethical 
import  and  results  for  both  sexes.  It  elevates  both  to 
higher  labors  and  aims.  A new  and  broader  unity  is 
therein  accomplished  in  the  sphere  of  domestic  life.  It 
becomes  a veritable  school  for  ethical  culture.  He  also 
opposes  marriage  between  blood-relations,  saying  that  inti- 
macy and  similarity  of  tastes  and  aims  of  the  couple  rather 
succeed  than  precede  wedlock.  These  should  be  the  ethical 
results  of  this  school  of  virtue.] 


J54 


E THICALITY  (. SITTLICHKEIT ). 


§ 167. 

Wedlock  is  essentially  monogamy , since  it  is  the  person- 
ality, the  immediate,  exclusive  individuality  that  devotes 
and  surrenders  itself  to  this  relation.  The  truth  and  the  in- 
ternality  {the  subjective  form  of  substantiality)  of  this  relation 
results,  therefore,  only  from  the  mutual  undivided  devotion 
of  this  personality.  This  realizes  its  right  to  be  conscious 
of  itself  in  another,  only  when  the  other  enters  this  identity 
as  a person,  that  is,  as  an  atomic  individuality. 

Wedlock,  and  especially  monogamy,  is  one  of  the  abso- 
lute principles  on  which  ethicality  (/.  e .,  concrete  morality) 
of  a communal  life  depends.  Hence  the  institution  of  wed- 
lock is  referred  as  a phase  of  the  divine  or  heroic  founding 
of  states. 

§ 169. 

The  family  has,  as  person,  its  external  reality  in  its  prop- 
erty, in  which  it  has  the  specific  character  of  its  substantial 
personality  only  when  this  property  has  the  form  of  means 
or  possession. 

B.  The  Possessions  of  the  Family. 

§ 170. 

The  family  has  not  only  property,  but  with  its  being  a 
universal  and  enduring  person,  there  comes  the  need  and  the 
characteristic  of  having  an  enduring  and  certain  estate  or 
fortune.  The  arbitrary  phase  of  abstract  property,  belong- 
ing to  the  particular  needs  of  the  single  individual  and  to 
the  self-seeking  of  the  desires,  transforms  itself  here  into 
the  care  and  acquisition  for  a common  weal,  into  an  ethical 
activity. 

The  introduction  of  fixed  property  appears  in  the  tradi- 
tional accounts  of  the  foundation  of  the  State  in  connection 
with  the  introduction  of  marriage,  or  at  least  with  the 


THE  FAMILY. 


!55 

beginning  of  a social  and  orderly  life.  — Wherein  further, 
these  possessions  consist,  and  how  they  may  gain  true 
stability,  is  a problem  that  belongs  to  the  sphere  of  the 
civic  community. 

The  Educatmi  of  Children  and  the  Dissolution  of  the  Fa?nily. 

§ 173. 

«u. 

TV  TT  TT  '7V' 

Supplementary.  — ■ Between  man  and  wife  the  relation  of 
love  is  not  yet  objective;  for,  although  feeling  is  the  sub- 
stantial unity,  this  has  no  objectivity.  Such  an  objectivity 
the  parents  first  gain  in  their  children.  In  these  they  have 
the  totality  of  their  union  before  themselves.  The  mother 
loves  her  husband,  and  the  husband  his  wife,  in  their  child. 
Both  have  in  the  child  their  love  incarnate  before  them- 
selves. While  in  the  family  possessions  the  unity  is  only  in 
an  external  thing,  in  the  child  this  unity  is  in  a spiritual 
being,  by  whom  the  parents  are  loved  and  whom  they  love. 

§ 174. 

The  children  have  a right  to  be  educated  and  supported 
from  the  common  family  possessions.  The  right  of  the 
parents  to  the  service  of  the  children,  as  service,  is  estab- 
lished and  limited  by  the  common  interest  in  the  cares  of 
the  family.  The  right  of  the  parent  to  limit  the  freedom  of 
their  children  exists  for  the  purpose  of  discipline  and  educa- 
tion. The  end  of  punishment  is  not  justice  as  such,  but  is 
of  a subjective,  moral  nature  ; its  purpose  is  to  deter  the 
freedom  that  is  only  of  uncultured  nature  [is  naturalistic 
only],  and  to  aid  and  elevate  the  universal  in  the  child’s 
consciousness  and  will. 

Supplementary.  — [Hegel  further  maintains  that  the  child’s 
right  of  education  rests  upon  the  necessity  of  aid  in  his 


156  ETHICALITY  (. SITTLICHKEIT ). 

self-development  of  potential  manhood.  The  parent  should 
only  require  such  service  from  him  as  promotes  this  educa- 
tion. On  the  other  hand,  children  should  not  be  permitted 
to  do  just  as  they  please,  though  the  breaking  the  will  of 
children  should  not  be  merely  arbitrary.  Obedience  is  to 
be  demanded  on  the  ground  of  the  parents’  larger  knowl- 
edge of  what  is  best  for  them.  Parents  should  remember 
that  their  children  are  potentially  free  spiritual  beings,  and 
so  never  treat  them  as  slaves  or  mere  soulless  things.  They 
should  make  it  the  primary  end  to  educate  them  so  that 
their  ethical  substance,  and  their  hearts  and  wills  should 
first  come  to  flower  and  fruitage  in  the  form  of  love,  confi- 
dence and  obedience.  They  should  further  seek  to  develop 
in  them  the  sense  of  independence  and  free  personality,  that 
they  may  in  due  time  be  prepared  to  go  out  from  the  natural 
unity  of  the  family  and  take  their  places  as  free  and  equal 
personalities  with  their  parents  in  the  civil  community,  form- 
ing for  themselves  new  domestic  circles.  This  leads  to  the 
topic  of  the  Dissolution  of  the  Family-relation .] 

§ 176. 

As  wedlock,  primarily, is  only  the  immediate  ethical  Idea , 
and  hence  has  its  objective  actuality  in  the  intimate  inter- 
nality  of  the  subjective  disposition  and  feeling,  we  find  in 
this  the  first  contingent  element  of  its  existence.  Just  as 
little  as  compulsion  to  enter  the  state  of  wedlock  is  possible, 
just  so  little  can  a merely  legal,  positive  bond  keep  the 
subjects  (of  wedlock)  together,  when  averse  and  hostile 
sentiment  and  actions  gain  the  ascendancy.  Hence  a 
third  ethical  authority  is  necessary  that  shall  secure  the 
legal  right  of  wedlock,  of  ethical  substantiality,  against  the 
bare  opinion  of  such  sentimental  disposition  and  against 
the  accidence  of  only  temporary  moods  and  the  like  — an 
authority  that  shall  distinguish  these  temporary  moods  from 


THE  FAMILY. 


1S7 


total  estrangement,  and  decide  where  the  latter  occurs,  in 
order  to  be  able  in  such  cases  to  dissolve  the  marital  bonds. 

Supplementary . — When  wedlock  depends  on  merely  sub- 
jective and  accidental  feeling  alone,  it  can  be  dissolved. 
The  State,  on  the  contrary,  is  not  subject  to  division  and 
dissolution,  since  it  is  founded  on  law.  Wedlock  ought , 
certainly,  to  be  indissoluble  ; but  here  it  comes  no  farther 
than  to  the  ought.  But  since  wedlock  is  something  ethical 
(belonging  to  an  ethical  community),  it  cannot  be  dissolved 
arbitrarily,  but  only  through  an  ethical  authority,  whether 
this  be  the  church  or  a court  of  justice.  When  the  parties 
are  totally  estranged  from  each  other,  as  in  a case  of  adultery, 
even  the  religious  authority  must  allow  divorce. 

§ 178-§  180. 

[The  dissolution  of  the  family  thus  occurs  (i)  through  the 
death  of  the  parents  and  the  consequent  distribution  of  the 
common  property  among  the  natural  heirs,  (2)  through  the 
total  alienation  of  the  married  couple  and  their  consequent 
separation,  and  (3)  in  the  normal  way,  through  the  growth 
and  development  of  the  children  into  maturity.] 

The  Transition  of  the  Family  into  the  Civic  Community. 

§ 181. 

The  family  transforms  itself  in  a natural  way,  and  espe- 
cially through  the  principle  of  personality,  into  a plurality  of 
families  outside  of  one  another.  These  families  are  related 
to  one  another,  in  general,  as  independent  concrete  persons, 
and  consequently  in  an  external  manner.  Or,  the  inter- 
locked moments  (which  are  as  yet  undeveloped  in  their 
concept ) in  the  unity  of  the  family,  as  the  ethical  Idea , must 
be  allowed  independent  reality  in  the  concept.  This  is  the 
stage  of  differentiation.  First,  abstractly  expressed,  this  gives 
the  determination  of  particularity.  This  particular  refers 


!58 


ETHICALITY  (. SITTLICHKEIT ). 


itself,  indeed,  to  universality,  but  in  such  a manner  that  the 
universal  becomes  as  yet  only  the  internal  ground  which 
consequently  exists  in  a formal  and  only  apparent  manner1 
( scheinende  Weise ) in  the  particular. 

The  expansion  of  the  family  in  its  transition  into  another 
principle,  happens,  in  actual  history,  partly  as  the  quiet 
expansion  of  a family  into  a people,  a nation , which  hence 
has  a common  natural  origin,  and  partly  as  the  association 
of  dispersed  family  communities,  either  through  military 
force  or  through  voluntary  alliance,  furthered  by  common 
needs  and  by  the  reciprocal  activity  necessary  for  their 
satisfaction. 

Supplementary.  — Universality  has  here  as  its  point  of 
inception,  the  independence  of  the  particular,  and,  hence 
ethicality  appears  lost  at  this  stage,  since,  for  consciousness, 
the  identity  of  the  family  is  that  which  is  regarded  as  the 
first,  the  divine,  the  source  of  duty.  But  now  a condition 
begins  in  which  the  particular  demands  the  first  place  for 
itself,  and  consequently  the  primary  form  of  ethical  determi- 
nation (the  domestic  life)  is  abolished.  But,  in  reality,  I 
only  err  in  making  this  demand,  for  when  I believe  that  I 
hold  fast  to  the  particular,  the  universal  and  the  necessity 
of  the  interdependence  of  the  universe  still  remain  the  first 
and  the  essential  : I am  consequently  on  the  stage  of 
appearance , and  while  my  particularity  continues  to  deter- 
mine me  (that  is  to  say,  continues  to  be  my  purpose),  I 
thereby  serve  the  universal,  which,  in  reality,  retains  the 
final  power  over  me. 

1 In  Hegel  scheinend , “apparent,”  does  not.  have  the  connotation 
false , deceptive,  as  in  English;  for  with  Hegel,  ground  and  appearance  are 
categories  of  equal  importance  to  essence  ( Wesen.)  Hence  the  reader 
must  understand  appearance  and  apparent  as  referring  to  the  expression, 
the  phenomenalization  of  the  ground,  or  internal  nature,  of  Wesen. 
This  reflexive  relation  presents  at  first  the  loss  of  ethicality;  but,  since,  as 
essence,  it  is  necessarily  phenomenal  (must  reveal  itself  as  phenomenon), 
it  produces  the  phenomenal  world  of  ethicality  (of  the  ethical  Idea),  the 
civic  community. 


THE  CIVIC  COMMUNITY. 


159 


SECOND  SECTION. 

The  Civic  Community. 

§ 182. 

The  concrete  person  who  realizes  himself  as  particular 
end  (literally  : is  himself  as  particular  end),  as  a total  of 
wants  with  a mixture  of  natural  necessity  and  arbitrary 
choice,  is  the  special  principle  of  the  civic  community.  But 
here  is  meant  the  particular  person  that  has  his  essence  in 
his  relation  ( Beziehung ) to  other  particular  persons,  so  that 
each  satisfies  and  realizes  himself  as  mediated  through  the 
others,  and  (hence)  at  the  same  time  absolutely  through  the 
form  of  universality  only.  This  universal  or  common  ele- 
ment forms  the  second  principle  of  civil  society. 

Supplementary.- — The  civic  community  is  the  difference 
(intermediate  stage)  that  stands  between  the  family  and 
the  State,  even  though  its  evolution  follows  later  than  the 
evolution  of  the  State  ; since  as  the  intermediate,  the  civil 
society  presupposes  the  State,  as  it  must  have  something 
independent  to  rely  on,  in  order  to  endure.  The  creation  of 
the  civic  community  belongs,  moreover,  to  the  modern  world, 
as  here  first  all  the  determinations  of  the  Idea  have  received 
their  just  recognition.  When  the  State  is  conceived  as  a 
unity  of  different  persons,  but  as  a unity  that  is  only  a 
community  ( e . g.,  of  interest),  there  is  reference  only  to  the 
determinations  of  the  civic  community.  Many  of  the  later 
writers  on  politics  and  law  have  not  been  able  to  advance 
to  any  other  view  of  the  State.  In  the  civic  community 
I each  one  is  his  own  end,  all  others  are  nothing  to  him. 
But,  without  reference  to  others,  no  individual  is  able  to 
pealize  his  end  to  its  full  extent  ; these  others,  hence, 
become  the  means  to  the  end  of  the  particular.  But  the 
particular  aim  takes  on  a form  of  universality  through  its 


i6o  E TH1CALITY  ( SITTLICHKEIT ). 

reference  to  others,  and  satisfies  itself  by  simultaneously 
satisfying  the  weal  of  others.  Because  particularity  is 
bound  up  along  with  the  conditions  of  universality,  the 
whole  is  the  ground  of  mediation  in  which  all  individuali- 
ties, all  talents,  all  accidence  of  birth  and  fortune  liberate 
themselves.  In  this  too  the  currents  of  all  passions  empty 
themselves,  passions  that  are  ruled  only  by  permeating 
reason.  Particularity  limited  by  universality  is  alone  the 
measure  through  which  every  particular  individual  furthers 
his  own  welfare.  Thus  the  Civic  Community  is  what  we 
understand  by  “ the  state  on  its  external  side  ” or  as 
Government,  arising  from  needs  as  presented  to  the  under- 
standing. 

§ 184. 

The  Idea , at  this  its  stage  of  differentiation,  contains  the 
phase  of  existence  peculiar  to  the  individual  ( eigenthiimliches 
V Dasei/i),  of  pandicula-rity  — the  right  to  develop  and  extend 
one’s  self  in  all  directions,  and  also  the  phase  of  universality 
■ — • its  right  to  prove  itself  the  ground  and  necessary  form  of 
particularity,  as  well  as  the  power  over  it,  and  its  ultimate 
end.  It  is  the  system  of  an  ethicality  lost  in  its  extremes 
that  makes  up  the  abstract  phase  of  the  reality  of  the  Idea 
which  here  exists  as  the  relative  totality  and  inner  necessity 
to  this  external  appearance. 

Supplementary.  — The  ethical  concept  has  here  been  lost 
in  its  extremes,  and  the  unmediated  unity  of  the  family  has 
been  disorganized  into  a collected  multitude.  The  reality 
is,  at  this  stage  of  externality,  the  dissolution  of  the  concept , 
the  independence  of  the  liberated  and  existent  phases.  Yet 
even  here  men  are  conditioned  by  their  reciprocal  needs  and 
welfare.  In  seeking  one’s  own  aim  and  well-being,  a person 
necessarily  seeks  more  universal  ones,  and,  in  turn,  the 
more  universal  ones  are  only  attained  through  this  self- 
seeking  of  each  one.  . . . 


THE  CIVIC  COMMUNITY. 


161 


Abstract  of  § 185. 

This  development  of  the  individual  personality  of  all 
citizens  sometimes  seems  to  create  an  arena  in  which 
rampant  individualism  begets  great  excesses,  misery  and 
moral  corruption.  In  ancient  states  it  led  to  the  destruc- 
tion of  ethical  relations  and  thus  to  the  downfall  of  nations. 
These  ancient  states  were  founded  on  such  an  undeveloped 
form  of  the  universal  element  that  they  could  find  no  place 
for  individualism.  It  is  only  through  the  Christian  religion 
that  this  principle  of  subjective  freedom,  and  of  the  inde- 
pendent and  infinite  worth  of  the  individual  has  come  to  its 
just  recognition.  The  task  of  modern  states  is  to  welcome 
this  principle  and  to  incorporate  it  in  harmonious  unity 
with  the  larger  ethical  element. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  the  task  of  individualism  to  learn 
that  its  real  and  substantial  freedom  can  oniy  be  found  in 
the  sphere  of  a common  weal  and  life,  where  helping  others 
is  the  best  form  of  helping  one’s  own  self. 

§ 187. 

The  individuals  are,  as  citizens  of  this  civic  community, 
private  persons , who  have  their  own  interests  as  their  end. 
Since  this  end  is  mediated  through  the  universal,  which, 
consequently,  appears  to  the  individuals  in  question  as  means, 
this  end  can  be  attained  by  them  only  in  so  far  as  they 
themselves  determine  their  will,  desires,  and  acts  in  a 
universal  manner,  and  make  themselves  links  in  the  chain 
of  this  connected  whole.  As  the  civic  community  does  not 
exist  as  such  in  the  consciousness  of  its  members,  the 
interest  of  the  Idea  lies  here  in  the  process  of  elevating  the 
individual  and  natural  elements  of  the  Idea , through  the 
necessity  of  nature  as  well  as  through  the  arbitrariness  of 
wants,  to  formal  freedom  and  formal  universality  of  knowledge 
and  will.  In  other  words,  this  is  the  process  of  developing 


IÖ2 


ETHIC  ALI  TY  (. SITTLICHKEIT ). 


subjectivity  in  its  phase  of  particularity.  . . . Hence  educa- 
tion, in  its  real  essence,  is  liberation , and  that  the  work  of 
the  higher  liberation.  It  is  the  point  of  transition  to  that 
infinite  subjective  substantiality  of  ethicality,  which  is  no 
longer  unmediated  and  natural,  but  spiritual,  being  elevated 
to  the  form  of  universality.  In  the  subject  this  liberation 
is  hard  toil  as  compared  with  the  bare  subjectivity  of  mere 
conduct,  and  with  the  immediacy  of  the  desires  and  sub- 
jective vanity  of  feeling  and  the  arbitrariness  of  inclination. 
That  this  liberation  is  hard  work  causes  a good  deal  of  the 
ill  favor  to  which  it  is  subject.  But  it  is  through  this  hard 
work  of  education,  that  the  subjective  will  itself  gains  that 
objectivity  in  which  alone,  on  its  part,  it  becomes  worthy 
and  capable  of  being  the  actuality  of  the  Idea. 

This  form  of  universality  to  which  particularity  has 
developed  and  elevated  itself,  and  that  has  effected  that 
particularity,  becomes  true  independent  existence  of  indi- 
viduality ; and  as  it  gives  to  universality  its  adequate  content 
and  its  infinite  self-determination,  this  particularity  remains, 
even  in  ethicality,  as  infinite,  independent,  free  subjectivity. 
This  is  the  stage  which  exhibits  education  as  an  immanent 
phase  of  the  absolute,  and  proves  its  infinite  value.  We 
may  define  the  man  of  culture  to  be  a person  who  can  do 
everything  that  others  do,  without  losing  his  individuality. 
Culture  is  the  rubbing  off  of  angular  peculiarities,  and 
enables  one  to  appreciate  univeral  interests. 

The  civic  community  contains  three  phases  : 

(A)  The  mediation  of  the  desire  and  satisfaction  of  the 
individual  through  his  work  and  through  the  work  and  the 
satisfaction  of  the  wants  of  all  the  other  individuals,  — the 
system  of  wants. 

(B)  The  actuality  of  the  immanent  universal  freedom,  the 
protection  of  property  through  the  administration  of  justice. 

(C)  The  precaution  exercised  against  the  remnant  of 
chance  in  this  system,  and  the  management  of  the  particular 


THE  CIVIC  COMMUNITY  163 

interests  as  of  something  possessed  in  common , through 
police  and  the  corporations. 

A.  The  System  of  Wants 

§ 189. 

In  its  first  aspect  ( zunächst ) particularity,  being  the 
determined,  in  general,  as  over  against  the  universal  element 
of  the  will,  is  subjective  want.  These  wants  gain  their  objec- 
tivity, i.  e.,  satisfaction , through  the  means  (a)  of  external 
things,  which  include  the  property  and  products  of  the  wants 
and  wills  of  others,  and  ( 'b ) through  the  means  of  activity 
and  labor  as  the  mediation  of  the  two  sides  (the  particular 
and  universal  element).  Since  the  aim  of  activity  is  the 
satisfaction  of  particular  subjective  wants,  and  since,  in 
relation  to  these  same  wants  and  to  the  free  choice  of  others, 
the  universal  realizes  itself,  we  have  the  appearance  of 
rationality  in  this  sphere  of  the  finite  in  the  form  of  the 
understanding.  This  is  the  phase  on  which  the  discussion 
here  turns,  and  which  constitutes,  in  this  sphere,  the  recon- 
ciling element  itself  . . . This  mutual  interaction  between 
individuals  and  society,  in  a realm  of  apparently  unbridled 
individualism,  is  quite  remarkable.  It  is  like  the  apparently 
unregulated  movement  of  the  heavenly  bodies  whose  law, 
however,  can  be  discovered  and  understood. 

(a)  The  Nature  of  Wants  and  their  Satisfaction. 

§ 190. 

The  animal  has  a limited  range  of  ways  and  means  of 
satisfying  its  likewise  limited  needs.  But  man  shows  even 
in  this  condition  of  dependency  at  once  his  transcendence 
over  dependency,  and  his  universality,  first  in  the  multipli- 
cation of  wants  and  means,  and  then  through  the  distinction 
and  separation  of  the  concrete  want  into  different  parts  and 


164 


ETHICALITY  (. SITTLICHKEIT ). 


phases.  Thus  differentiated  and  particularized , they  become 
abstract  watits. 

In  the  sphere  of  legal  right,  it  is  the  person;  in  that  of 
morality,  the  subject ; in  the  family,  the  fmnily-number ; in 
the  civic  community  in  general,  the  citizen , the  burgher  (as 
bourgeois ),  and  here,  at  the  stage  of  wants  (comp.  § 123, 
note),  it  is  the  general  conception  ( Vorstellung ) that  is  called 
man.  It  is  consequently  here,  and  strictly  here  only,  that 
we  speak  of  man , in  this  sense. 

Supplementary.  — The  animal  is  something  particular, 
having  its  instinct  and  its  limited  means  for  satisfaction, 
which  are  not  to  be  transcended.  There  are  insects  that  are 
limited  to  a certain  species  of  plants  alone,  and  though  there 
are  other  animals  that  have  a wider  sphere,  and  can  live  in 
different  climates,  they  are  still  limited  in  comparison  with 
the  sphere  of  man. 

§ 191. 

Likewise  the  means  for  the  particularized  needs,  and,  in 
general,  the  ways  of  satisfying  them,  differentiate  and  multi- 
ply themselves,  and  thus  become  relative  ends  and  abstract 
needs.  Hence  we  have  here  an  infinite  progression  of 
multiplication  which,  in  the  same  measure,  consists  in  dis- 
tinguishing these  determinations  and  in  judging  of  the 
suitability  of  means  to  their  ends  ; in  other  words,  it  is 
refinement. 

The  condition  which  Englishmen  call  “ comfortable  ” is 
something  inexhaustible,  ever  leading  on  to  a more  com- 
fortable one. 

§ 192. 

Wants,  and  the  means  of  satisfying  them,  become  in  their 
extraneous  forms,  at  the  same  time,  a set  of  relations  to  other 
people , through  whose  wants  and  work  satisfaction  is 
mutually  conditioned.  The  abstraction  (see  preceding  §), 


THE  CIVIC  COMMUNITY.  165 

which  becomes  a quality  of  wants  and  means,  becomes  also 
a determination  of  the  mutual  relation  of  individuals  to  one 
another.  When  recognized,  this  universal  element  is  the 
phase  which  gives  these  individual  and  abstract  needs, 
means,  and  forms  of  satisfaction  a concrete  and  social  char- 
acter. 

§ 194. 

Since  in  social  want,  as  the  connection  of  immediate  or 
natural  and  of  spiritual  wants  of  the  general  conception , the 
latter,  as  the  universal,  is  the  more  important,  the  phase  of 
liberation  lies  in  this  social  phase  in  this  manner  : the  stern 
necessity  of  nature  belonging  to  the  wants  is  lessened,  and 
man  comes  in  relation  to  his  own,  indeed,  to  a universal 
significance  and  to  an  only  self-made  necessity.  Instead  of 
coming  in  relation  only  to  an  external  world,  he  has  to  do 
with  an  internal  world  of  contingency  and  free  choice. 

The  opinion  that  when  man  lived  in  the  so-called  state  of 
nature,  in  which  he  had  only  so-called  simple,  natural  wants, 
and  used  only  such  means  for  their  satisfaction  as  nature 
chanced  to  offer,  he  then,  in  reference  to  his  needs,  lived  in 
freedom,  is,  without  reference  to  the  liberation  that  lies  in 
work  (of  which  later),  a false  view.  Natural  wants  as  such 
and  their  immediate  satisfaction  represent  only  a spirituality 
which  is  submerged  in  nature,  and  which  is,  therefore,  rude- 
ness and  thralldom  under  nature.  Real  freedom,  however, 
consists  only  in  the  reflection  of  the  spiritual  upon  itself,  in 
its  differentiation  from  the  natural  and  in  its  reflex-spiritual 
determination  of  nature. 

§ 195. 

This  liberation  is  formal , since  the  particularity  of  the 
ends  remains  the  fundamental  content.  The  tendency  of 
the  social  state  towards  unlimited  multiplication  and  special- 
ization of  wants,  means,  and  enjoyment,  which,  like  the 


i66 


E THICALITY  (. SITTLICHKEIT ). 


differentiation  between  natural  and  uncultured  wants,  has 
no  limits,  — in  other  words,  luxury , is  likewise  an  endless 
augmentation  of  dependence  and  distress.  These  must,  in 
order  to  reduce  it  to  the  property  of  the  free  will,  do  battle 
with  a matter  that  presents  an  endless  opposition,  that  is,  do 
battle  with  external  means  of  different  kinds,  consequently 
they  have  to  do  with  absolute  hardship. 

Supplementary.  — Diogenes  with  all  his  cynicism  is  strictly 
nothing  but  the  product  of  the  social  life  of  Athens,  and 
what  determined  him  was  the  view  against  which  the  sages 
of  Athens  in  general  agitated.  This  view  is  hence  not 
independent,  but  arose  from  the  social  conditions  them- 
selves, and  is,  indeed,  an  unhealthy  product  of  luxury  itself. 
Wherever  luxury  is  at  its  height,  there  also  distress  and 
profligacy  are  just  as  great,  and  cynicism  results  as  the 
opposition  to  refinement. 

( 'b ) The  Nature  of  Labor. 

§ 196. 

The  mediation  that  is  to  prepare  and  procure  for  the 
particularized  wants  the  adequate  and  equally  particularized 
means,  is  labor.  Its  purpose  is  to  specialize  the  material 
immediately  given  by  nature  through  the  most  manifold 
processes  for  this  multitude  of  ends.  It  is  this  formative 
activity  that  gives  to  the  means  their  value  and  appropriate- 
ness, so  that,  in  consumption , man  is  related  chiefly  to  human 
productions.  It  is  human  exertions  that  he  consumes. 

Supplementary.  — The  immediate  material  which  does  not 
need  to  be  prepared  for  use  by  human  labor,  is  insignificant. 
One  must  earn  the  very  air  he  breathes,  since  he  must  temper 
it  to  his  comfort  and  safety.  Water  alone,  perhaps,  can  be 
used  in  its  natural  state.  The  sweat  of  the  human  brow 
and  the  work  of  the  human  hand  procures  for  man  the 
means  for  satisfying  his  wants. 


THE  CIVIC  COMMUNITY 


167 


§ 197. 

In  the  multiplicity  of  interesting  characteristics  and 
objects,  theoretic  culture  develops  for  itself  not  only  a mul- 
tiplicity of  conceptions  and  intellectual  acquirements,  but 
also  a mobility  and  rapidity  of  the  mind  in  conceiving  and 
in  passing  from  one  conception  to  another,  and  a power  of 
grasping  involved  and  universal  relations.  This  is  the 
culture  of  the  understanding,  along  with  which  goes  the 
development  of  speech.  Practical  education  through  labor 
consists  in  the  want  that  causes  it  and  the  habit  of  being 
occupied  with  some  employment,  and,  secondly,  in  the 
limitation  of  one' s activity  so  as  to  correspond  partly  to  the 
nature  of  the  material,  but  more  especially  to  the  will  of 
others  ; lastly,  practical  culture  consists  in  that  habit  of 
external  activity,  and  universally  valid  skill  which  is  gained 
by  this  training. 

Supplementary.  — The  barbarian  is  indolent,  and  distin- 
guishes himself  from  educated  man  in  brooding  in  an  atmos- 
phere of  stupidity.  For  practical  education  consists  just  in 
the  habit,  desire  and  need  of  productive  employment.  The 
unskilled  workman  produces  always  something  else  than  he 
intended,  because  he  is  not  master  of  his  own  activity.  He 
is  a skilled  workman  who  brings  forth  his  product  as  it 
should  be,  and  who  finds  no  discrepancy  between  his  sub- 
jective activity  and  the  end  attained. 

§ 198. 

The  universal  and  objective  element  in  labor  is  contained, 
however,  in  the  abstraction  which  causes  the  differentiation 
of  means  and  of  wants,  and  thereby  also  differentiates  pro- 
duction and  gives  rise  to  the  division  of  labor.  The  work  of 
the  individual  becomes  simpler  by  this  division  and  con- 
sequently his  skill  in  his  abstract  work,  as  well  as  the  amount 
of  his  production,  greater.  Hence  this  abstraction  neces- 


1 68  ETHICALITY  (. SITTLICHKEIT ). 

sarily  brings  to  perfection  at  once  the  skill  and  the  means 
of  dependence  and  the  mutual  relation  of  men  in  the  satis- 
faction of  other  wants.  The  abstraction  of  production  makes 
the  work  ever  more  mechanical , thereby  finally  leading  to  its 
transference  from  man  to  the  machine. 

(c)  Wealth. 

§ 199. 

Because  of  this  dependent  and  mutual  character  of  work 
and  of  the  satisfaction  of  wants,  the  subjective  self-seeking 
transforms  itself  into  a contribution  to  the  satisfaction  of  every- 
body' s wants , that  is,  into  the  mediation  of  the  particular 
through  the  universal  as  dialectic  movement,  so  that  while 
each  one  earns,  produces  and  enjoys  for  himself,  he  thereby 
also  produces  and  earns  for  the  enjoyment  of  the  rest. 
This  necessity,  which  consists  in  the  perfect  interconnection, 
in  dependence  of  all  with  all,  has  the  form  of  what  is  called 
general  permanent  wealth  (see  § 170),  which  contains  for 
each  one  the  possibility  of  partaking  in  the  common  prop- 
erty, through  his  education  and  skill,  in  order  to  be  assured 
of  subsistence.  On  the  other  hand  the  individual’s  earnings, 
mediated  by  his  labor,  sustains  and  increases  the  common 
possessions. 

§ 200. 

The  possibility  of  individuals  partaking  in  the  common 
possessions  depends,  partly  on  an  immediate  foundation 
(capital),  and  partly  on  the  skill  of  the  individuals.  This 
skill,  in  its  turn,  depends  again  on  capital,  and  then  on  the 
chance  circumstances  of  the  case.  Owing  to  these  diverse 
circumstances  the  natural  unequal  bodily  and  spiritual  ten- 
dencies and  talents  are  unequally  developed.  This  diversity 
presents  itself  in  this  sphere  of  particularity  in  all  directions 
and  at  all  stages,  and  has,  with  other  elements  of  chance 


THE  CIVIC  COMMUNITY. 


169 

and  arbitrariness,  the  unequal  distribution  of  property  and  the 
difference  between  individuals  in  skill  and  attainments  as  a 
necessary  consequence. 

The  spirit’s  objective  right  to  particularity , which  is  con- 
tained in  the  Idea,  not  only  does  not  abolish,  in  the  civic 
community,  the  natural  dissimilarity  between  men,  but 
produces  it  in  a spiritual  form,  and  elevates  it  to  a dissimi- 
larity of  skill,  of  possessions,  and  even  of  intellectual  and 
moral  development.  To  oppose  to  this  the  demand  of 
equality , is  characteristic  of  the  empty  understanding,  that 
mistakes  this,  its  ought,  and  its  abstract  conception  for  the 
real  and  the  rational.  This  sphere  of  the  particular  which 
the  universal  has  adopted  attains  only  relative  identity  with 
the  universal.  There  still  remains  in  it  much  of  the  natural 
and  arbitrary  particularity,  the  state  of  nature.  Further,  it 
is  Reason  as  immanent  in  the  system  of  human  wants  and 
activities  that  articulates  this  system  into  an  organic  whole 
of  different  members. 


§ 201. 

The  infinitely  manifold  means  and  their  just  as  infinite 
self-limitation,  in  the  activity  of  the  mutual  production  and 
exchange,  are  unified  through  the  permeating  universal 
element,  and  again  differentiated  into  masses  with  conmion 
characteristics  ; the  connected  total  evolves  itself  to  particular 
systems  of  wants,  of  their  means  and  trades,  of  the  kind 
and  manners  of  satisfaction  for  wants  and  of  the  theoretical 
and  practical  education  (systems  into  which  individuals 
naturally  enter)  ; in  short,  this  organized  totality  is  differ- 
entiated into  classes  of  civil  society.  If  the  family  be 
recognized  as  the  primary  basis  of  states,  classes  must 
be  recognized  as  the  second  one.  Through  them,  the 
individual  seeks  at  least  relatively  broader  aims  than  mere 
private  interests. 


170 


ETHICALITY  {SITTLICHKEIT). 


§ 202. 

Classes  thus  formed  are  distinguished  as  the  substantial 
class  (agriculturists),  the  reflective  or  formative  class  (arti- 
sans), and  lastly,  the  universal  class  (the  learned  and 
office-holding  class). 

§ 203. 

The  substantial  class  has  its  possessions  in  the  natural 
products  of  the  soil  which  it  cultivates.  It  must  have  land 
suitable  to  be  exclusive  private  property,  and  demands  not 
only  chance-gathering  of  usufruct  (as  the  gathering  of  wild 
berries,  breadfruit,  etc.),  but  objectively  formative  labor. 
Against  the  connection  of  labor  and  its  result  with  special 
fixed  seasons,  and  the  dependence  of  the  crop  on  the 
variable  natural  processes,  the  aim  of  satisfying  wants 
becomes  provident  care  for  the  future.  On  account  of  these 
conditions,  the  manner  of  subsistence  in  this  class  is  but 
little  mediated  by  reflection  and  individual  will.  It  retains, 
in  general,  the  substantial  disposition  of  an  unmediated 
ethicality,  depending  on  confidence  (in  nature)  and  on  family 
relations.  [Hegel  continues  here  to  show  why  the  begin- 
ning of  agriculture  should  be  placed  side  by  side  with  wed- 
lock as  the  first  foundation  of  the  state  and  its  civilization. 
Both  agriculture  and  wedlock  are  in  the  nature  of  li??iitation 
of  the  arbitrariness  of  the  individual.  Both  tend  to  make 
the  mode  of  life  more  stable,-  more  dependent  on  the  uni- 
versal laws  of  the  spirit  than  on  the  particularity  and  caprice 
of  the  individual.  Hence,  the  mythologies  of  the  ancients 
represent  the  introduction  of  agriculture  as  a divine  deed, 
worthy  of  being  commemorated  in  religious  festivities  and 
worship. 

To  be  sure,  the  factory  methods  of  cultivating  the  soil, 
which,  even  in  Hegel’s  time  began  to  be  prominent,  tend  to 
obliterate  the  distinction  between  the  agriculturist  and  the 


THE  CIVIC  COMMUNITY. 


171 


artisan  ; but  still,  Hegel  thinks,  the  patriarchal  mode  of  life 
of  the  agriculturist  is  rather  gaining  than  losing  vitality. 
Here  man  lives  in  unmediated  communion  with  nature. 
The  yield  of  his  acres  comes  to  him  as  a direct  gift,  for 
which  he  gives  thanks  to  God.  He  lives  in  the  confident 
trust  that  this  goodness  of  God  will  continue.  What  he  gets  • 
is  enough  for  him  ; he  uses  it  freely,  for  more  is  coming. 
This  is  the  old  nobility  disposition  and  view  of  life  of  this 
class.] 

In  the  production  of  this  class,  nature  is  the  chief  factor 
and  man  the  secondary.  In  the  second  class  (the  forma- 
tive), the  human  intellect  is  the  essential  element  and 
nature’s  product  only  the  material. 

§ 204. 

(b)  The  industrial  class  has  as  its  business  the  change  of 
form  of  the  products  of  nature,  and  depends,  especially,  for 
its  subsistence,  on  its  labor  and  on  the  use  it  makes  of  the 
reflective  powers  of  the  intellect,  as  well  as  essentially  on 
the  skill  with  which  it  can  deal  with  the  wants  and  work  of 
others.  For  what  it  possesses  and  enjoys,  it  scarce  need 
to  thank  any  one  but  itself,  its  own  activity.  This  activity 
may  be  divided  as  follows  : work  for  individual  needs  in  a 
concrete  manner  and  at  the  request  of  individuals,  the  work 
of  the  artisan  or  manual  laborers  ; work  in  the  more  abstract 
form  for  the  sum  total  of  individual  wants,  but  hence  for  a 
universal  need,  the  work  of  the  manufacturers ; and  the 
work  of  exchange  of  the  individualized  means  of  want  and 
satisfaction  for  one  another  through  the  common  medium 
of  exchange,  7noney,  in  which  the  abstract  value  of  all 
goods  exists  as  an  actuality.  This  is  the  work  of  the 
commercial  or  trading  class.  The  sense  of  freedom  and  of 
order  is  especially  developed  in  this  class,  depending,  as  it 
does,  so  largely  upon  its  own  foresight  and  intelligence. 


172 


E TH  I CA  LIT  Y (. SITTLICHKEIT ). 


§ 205. 

(c)  The  common , or  universal,  class  has  as  its  business  the 
universal , or  common  interests  of  the  social  state.  Hence 
this  class  should  be  relieved  from  the  direct  work  for  the 
satisfaction  of  private  wants,  either  by  their  own  private 
fortune  or  by  being  compensated  by  the  state,  which 
demands  their  activity.  Their  private  interests  should  be 
guaranteed  to  them  while  they  work  for  the  common  weal. 

§ 206. 

Thus  the  classes  as  particularity,  having  become  objective, 
differentiate  themselves,  according  to  the  concept,  into  these 
fundamental  distinctions.  On  the  other  hand,  however,  the 
question  as  to  which  class  any  particular  individual  is  to 
belong  depends  to  some  degree  on  his  natural  gifts,  nativity, 
and  other  circumstances.  Still,  the  final  and  essential  deter- 
mination rests  with  the  subjective  opinion  and  particular  choice 
of  the  individual.  In  this  sphere,  subjective  opinion  and 
free  choice  find  their  right  use  and  honor,  so  that  what  here 
happens  because  of  inner  necessity  is  likewise  mediated  by 
free  choice , and  has  hence,  for  the  subjective  consciousness, 
the  form  of  a product  of  its  own  will. 

We  find  here  the  difference  between  the  practical  life  of 
the  Orient  and  the  Occident,  and  between  the  ancient  and 
modern  world.  In  the  former  this  division  into  classes 
arises  objectively  and  necessarily,  the  principle  of  subjective 
individuality  being  thus  deprived  of  its  right.  For  the 
assignment  of  individuals  was  there  left  to  the  rulers  (as  in 
the  Platonic  Republic),  or  made  a mere  matter  of  birth,  as 
in  the  Hindu  castes.  Thus,  not  being  recognized  in  the 
organization  of  the  state  and  so  harmonized  with  it,  the 
principle  of  subjective  individuality,  which  is  an  essential 
factor  of  society,  is  rendered  hostile  and  destructive  of  the 
social  order,  and  either  succeeds  in  destroying  it,  as  in  the 


THE  CIVIC  COMMUNITY. 


*73 


Grecian  States  and  the  Roman  Republic,  or  else,  attaining 
power  or  some  sort  of  religious  authority,  it  results  in 
internal  corruption  and  complete  degradation,  as  was  the 
case,  to  a certain  extent,  among  the  Lacedemonians  and  is 
now  (1820)  being  thoroughly  illustrated  among  the  Hindus. 
But  when  this  principle  is  duly  recognized  in  the  organization 
and  integrated  with  it,  and  thus  maintained  in  its  right,  it 
becomes  the  very  animating  principle  of  civil  society,  of  the 
thinking  activity  of  men  and  of  personal  merit  and  honor. 
The  recognition  that  what  is  necessary  and  rational  in  civil 
society  is  mediated  and  brought  about  through  the  liberty  of 
individual  choice,  — this  is  what  constitutes  the  ordinary 
idea  ( Vorstellung)  of  freedom. 

§ 207. 

The  individual  acquires  actuality  by  entering  into  some 
determmate  form  of  existence,  the  interest  and  labors  of  some 
one  of  these  classes,  whereby  he  limits  himself  exclusively  to 
one  of  the  particular  spheres  of  wants.  Hence  the  ethical 
disposition  in  this  sphere  is  that  of  rectitude  and  class  honor. 
The  object  is  to  make  and  maintain  one’s  self  freely,  as  a 
member  of  one  phase  of  the  civil  community,  by  one’s  own 
industry  and  skill,  and  to  provide  for  one’s  self  only  through 
this  mediation  with  the  universal,  as  well  as  to  be  recognized 
herein  by  one’s  self  and  others,  as  a vital  member  of  society. 
Morality  has  its  proper  position  in  this  sphere,  where  reflec- 
tion on  one’s  actions,  the  end  of  the  particular  want  and 
welfare  is  the  ruling  conception,  and  where  the  accidental 
nature  of  their  satisfaction  elevates  into  a duty  even  a single 
and  accidental  act  of  assistance. 

Supplementary.  — By  the  principle  that  man  must  be  some- 
thing in  particular  we  understand  that  he  should  belong  to 
a definite  class.  It  is  this  which  makes  this  being  something 
mean  that  he  then  is  something  substantial.  A human 
being  that  does  not  belong  to  one  of  the  classes  is  only  a 


*74 


E THICALIT Y (. SITTLICHKEIT ). 


private  person  and  does  not  partake  in  the  universal  element.  ' 
To  be  sure,  the  individual  may  esteem  his  private  personality 
as  the  highest  form  of  life,  and  believe  that  if  he  should 
enter  a class  (i.  e.,  take  up  a trade  or  profession)  he  would 
thereby  lower  himself.  This  is  founded  on  the  false  concep- 
tion that  where  anyone  gains  thiough  his  own  exertion  any 
definite  class  mode  of  existence  he  thereby  limits  and 
degrades  himself. 


§ 208. 

The  principle  of  this  system  of  wants  is  a special  form  of 
knowing  and  willing  independent  universality  or  of  freedom. 
But  as  this  is  still  in  its  abstract  form  it  is  that  of  the  right 
of  property  in  itself.  But  this  right  exists  here  no  longer 
only  potentially  as  in  “abstract  right  ”,  but  as  a valid  actual- 
ity, as  the  protection  of  property  through  the  administration  of 
justice. 

B.  The  Administration  of  Justice. 

§ 209- 

The  relative  element  of  the  mutual  dependence  of  wants 
and  of  work  for  these  wants  has,  primarily,  its  refledion-into- 
itself  in  the  infinite  personality  (abstract)  justice  [legal  right]. 
But  it  is  this  sphere  of  the  relative  itself  which,  as  education , 
gives  to  legal  justice  its  existence  and  character  of  being 
universally  acknowledged , known  and  willed, , and,  when  medi- 
ated through  this  knowing  and  willing,  of  having  validity 
and  objective  actuality. 

It  belongs  to  culture  (to  thought  as  the  consciousness  of 
the  individual  in  the  form  of  universality)  that  the  ego  be 
conceived  as  universal  Person,  in  which  all  are  identical. 
Man  has  so  high  a worth  because  he  is  man,  not  because  he  is 
Jew,  Catholic,  Protestant,  German  or  Italian.  This  con- 
sciousness, to  which  thought  gives  validity,  is  of  infinite 


THE  CIVIC  COMMUNITY. 


*75 


importance,  and  is  faulty  only  when  it  settles,  as  cosmopoli- 
tanism, into  opposition  to  the  concrete  life  of  the  state. 

§ 210. 

Objective  justice  implies  on  the  one  hand  that  it  be  some- 
thing well  known,  on  the  other  that  it  have  such  reality  and 
power  as  to  make  it  recognized  as  universally  valid  and 
authoritative. 


( a ) Right  in  the  Form  of  Law. 

§ 211. 

Just  what  is  implicitly  right  is,  at  this  stage,  explicitly  set 
forth  in  objective  form,  i.  e.  it  is  determined  through  thought 
for  consciousness.  As  that  which  is  right  and  valid  it  is  set 
forth  as  something  known , — it  is  the  law.  Right,  or  justice, 
becomes  through  this  determination  positive  (legal)  right.1 

Abstract  of  Remainder  of  §. 

[To  posit  anything  as  universal  is  to  think  it.  Thought, 
in  fact,  according  to  Hegel,  is  always  a universalization. 
Hence  the  great,  yet  boundless  importance  of  expressed  or 
written  laws.  For  written  and  codified  law  is  not  merely  an 
expression  of  what  was  found  formerly  in  custom  and 
opinion.  In  the  very  act  of  thinking  out  the  life-giving  con- 
cept of  the  law,  the  codifier  brings  out  the  universal  element 
which  before  existed  only  implicitly  in  custom.  Customary 
law  has  hence  a lower  value  than  written  law.  Its  uni- 
versality is  recognized  only  in  a subjective  and  accidental 

1 The  German  words  Gesetz , “law,”  and  gesetzt  “posited,”  like  dtois 
and  TidrujLL  in  Greek,  have  of  course  the  same  root.  Law  is  something 
posited  (gesetzt),  something  set  down  as  a universal  principle  and  im- 
movable rule.  Hegel,  who  is  always  fond  of  utilizing  the  derivation  of 
words,  feels  therefore  that  the  connection  is  here  self-evident.  This 
must  be  borne  in  mind  in  reading  the  above  paragraph,  as  the  English 
cannot  preserve  the  etymological  argument. — r p.  M.  M. 


176  £ THICALITY  (. SITTLICHKEIT ). 

way,  that  is,  as  far  as  the  chief,  judge,  jury  or  mob  are  able 
or  willing  to  give  its  latent  universality  practical  validity. 
Hence,  the  opinion  that  customary  law  is  more  vital  than 
codified  law,  is  a grave  misconception.  Certainly  a law 
does  not  cease  to  be  customary  by  being  written  down. 
England’s  common  law  is  an  excellent  example  of  the  con- 
fused conceptions  that  rule  the  present  administration  of 
justice.  Theoretically,  it  is  an  unwritten  law,  the  “ mores 
majorum  ” of  the  English  nation  ; but,  practically,  no  law  is 
more  written  than  the  common  law.  In  fact  there  is  no  end 
to  the  writing  of  it.  Every  judge  and  court  are  supposed 
and  expected  to  found  their  decisions  on  the  recorded 
decisions  of  former  judges  and  courts.  But,  according  to 
the  theory  of  the  unwritten  law,  these  predecessors  did 
nothing  but  expressed  the  unwritten  law,  and  this  customary 
unwritten  law  exists  just  as  authoritatively  in  the  present 
court  and  judge  as  in  any  of  their  predecessors.  A similar 
confusion  arose  in  the  later  Roman  administration  of 
justice. 

To  refuse  to  believe  that  a nation’s  laws  may  be 
adequately  codified  is  to  offer  the  greatest  possible  insult  to 
such  a nation  and  to  its  legal  profession.] 

The  sun  and  planets  have  laws,  to  be  sure,  but  they  know 
them  not : likewise  the  barbarian.  It  is  only  when  civilized 
man  is  conscious  of  his  laws,  that  the  arbitrary  and  accidental 
elements  of  feeling  and  opinion,  such  as  revenge  and  sym- 
pathy, are  purified  from  his  administration  of  justice.  Con- 
flicts, “collisions,”  and  inconsistencies  in  laws  cannot  be 
avoided  ; these  also  serve  to  make  the  judge  to  be  some- 
thing higher  than  a machine.  But  to  try  to  avoid  conflicts 
of  laws,  by  allowing  a wider  field  for  the  arbitrary  decisions 
of  the  judge,  were  a retrogressive  step  towards  chance  and 
particularity  again.  This  is,  in  fact,  a great  fault  of  juris- 
prudence founded  on  custom.  Digests  of  decisions,  though 
certainly  superior  to  the  bare  records  of  the  courts,  still 


THE  CIVIC  COMMUNITY. 


1 77 


contain  so  much  adventitious  and  merely  historical  matter, 
as  the  English  practice  shows,  that  they  are  far  from  being 
satisfactory  from  a philosophical  point  of  view. 

§ 212. 

In  this  identity  of  implicit  (Ansichsein)  and  explicit 
( Gesetzsein ),  in  civil  conduct  only  that  which  is  law  is  binding 
as  right,  or  justice.  Since  the  characteristic  of  being  expli- 
citly set  forth  contains  also  the  accidental  element  of  the 
private  choice  and  other  arbitrary  elements,  it  is  quite  pos- 
sible that  that  which  is  law  may  be  quite  different  in  content 
from  that  which  is  in  itself  right.  In  positive  law,  we  have 
the  source  of  the  knowledge  of  the  just  in  cases  of  litigation. 
Positive  jurisprudence  is  largely  a historical  science  resting 
upon  authority. 

§ 213. 

Since  justice  first  arrives  at  definite  existence  in  the  form 
of  statute  law,  it  comes  into  application , as  far  as  its  content 
is  concerned,  in  relation  to  the  7?iaterial  furnished  by  the 
civic  community,  in  its  endlessly  special  and  complicated 
relations  and  forms  of  property  and  contract.  Further 
material  is  furnished  by  the  ethical  relations  depending  on 
disposition,  love,  and  confidence,  though,  naturally,  only  in 
as  far  as  they  contain  the  element  of  abstract  justice  (§  159). 
The  moral  element  and  moral  commandments,  which  have 
to  do  with  the  will  in  its  most  intimate  subjectivity  and 
particularity,  cannot  be  objects  of  positive  legislation.  Still 
further  material  is  furnished  by  the  rights  and  duties  that 
come  into  existence  in  the  administration  of  justice  itself 
and  from  the  organization  of  the  state  and  the  like. 

Supplementary.  — As  regards  the  higher  relations  of  wed- 
lock, love,  religion  and  the  state,  legislation  can  only  take 
cognizance  of  their  merely  external  sides.  In  this  respect 
great  difference  is  found  in  the  legislation  of  various 


178 


ETHICALITY  (. SITTLICHKEIT ). 


peoples.  ...  In  regard  to  the  oath,  however,  where  the 
matter  is  left  to  the  conscience  of  the  individual,  the  courts 
must  insist  upon  strict  honesty  and  truthfulness. 

§ 214. 

There  is  always  one  essential  phase  of  the  law  and  its 
administration  that  contains  an  accidental  element.  This 
depends  on  the  necessity  of  the  law’s  being  a universal 
decision,  that  must  be  applied  to  particular  cases.  To 
declare  against  this  accidental  element  is  to  utter  an  abstrac- 
tion. The  quantitative  measure  of  a punishment,  for  ex- 
ample, can  never  be  made  adequate  to  any  speculative 
concept.  (Pure  reason  can  never  determine  the  measure  of 
punishment.)  Whatever  the  sentence  may  be,  it  is,  on  this 
side,  always  somewhat  arbitrary.  This  contingent  element 
is,  however,  itself  necessary  in  this  sphere  and  to  reason 
against  a code  on  the  ground,  that  it  is  not  perfect,  is  to 
misunderstand  this  phase  in  which  no  perfection  is  possible, 
and  which  hence  must  be  taken  as  it  is. 

(b)  The  Essential  Characteristics  {das  Dasein)  of  the  Law. 

§ 215. 

The  obligation  to  obey  the  laws  contains,  from  the  side 
of  the  right  of  self-consciousness  (§  132  with  note)  the 
(moral)  necessity  of  the  laws  being  made  universally  known. 

Abstract  of  Remainder  of  §. 

[To  hang  the  tables  of  the  laws  so  high  over  people’s 
heads  that  no  citizen  can  read  them,  as  the  tyrant  Dionysius 
did,  is  an  injustice  and  a crime.  But  what  else  does  a 
government  do  that  hides  the  law  in  numberless  quartos, 
and  in  conflicting  decisions  of  courts  and  opinions  of  jurists 
— yes,  even  in  a foreign  language  ? On  the  other  hand, 


THE  CIVIC  COMMUNITY. 


179 


Justinian  and  other  codifiers,  however  imperfect  in  their 
work,  should  justly  be  praised  as  the  greatest  benefactors 
of  their  nations. 

The  legal  profession  should  indeed  consider  law  their 
speciality,  but  not,  as  they  often  do,  their  monopoly.  They 
do,  however,  often  object  to  the  layman’s  knowing  the  law 
in  the  same  spirit  as  the  physicists  objected  to  Goethe’s 
dissertation  on  color.  He,  a poet,  invade  the  territory  of 
the  physicist ! But  one  need  not  be  a shoemaker  to  know 
where  the  shoe  pinches,  nor  a specialist  to  understand  what 
belongs  to  the  universal  interests  of  mankind.  For  this 
is  the  foundation  of  liberty,  the  holiest  and  noblest  in  man.] 

Abstract  of  § 216. 

[Two  characteristics  are  essential  to  the  public  code  : 
first,  simple  universal  principles  ; and  secondly,  sufficiently 
explicit  application  of  these  principles  to  the  infinite  compli- 
cations to  which  human  relations  are  subject.  Hence  it  is 
not  to  be  reckoned  a fault  that  no  code  can  be  complete 
in  the  sense  of  having  a ready-made  application  to  every 
possible  case.  The  only  reasonable  claim  is  that  all  the 
fundamental  principles  should  be  plainly  expressed. 

One  great  source  of  legal  confusion  is,  no  doubt,  the 
injustice  upon  which  many  historical  institutions  are  founded. 
When  later  ages  have  tried  to  read  into  these  institutions  a 
rationality  that  they  originally  lacked,  this  misinterpretation 
in  favor  of  justice  necessarily  complicates  the  system.  The 
change  of  the  Roman  law  from  the  narrow  national  prejudice 
of  the  republic  to  the  lex  gentium  and  lex  naturae  of  the 
later  prudentes,  is  an  example.  But  the  chief  cause  of  the 
necessary  incompleteness  of  a code,  lies  in  the  finite  nature 
of  the  subject-matter  to  which  these  universal  principles 
are  to  be  applied.  This  must  of  necessity  produce  infinite 
progressions  in  the  application. 


i8o 


ETHICALITY  (. SITTLICHKEIT ). 


To  argue  against  a code  on  this  ground,  i.  e.,  that  it 
cannot  be  completed,  is  to  fail  to  remember  that  Le  plus 
grand  ennemi  du  bien  c'est  le  mieux.  No  art,  no  science, 
no  undertaking  would  be  worth  while,  according  to  such 
reasoning,  for  nothing  can  be  complete  in  its  application, 
not  even  geometry.  The  noblest,  grandest,  and  most 
beautiful  were  then  worthless,  since  there  might  be  some- 
thing more  noble,  grand  and  beautiful  not  yet  discovered. 
But  a great  tree  may  continually  put  forth  more  branches 
and  still  it  is  not  a new  tree  ; and  it  would  certainly  be 
foolish  never  to  plant  a tree  because  it  might  get,  after 
a while,  additional  branches.] 

§ 217. 

As  in  the  civic  community  implicit  justice  becomes  law,  so 
also  my  formerly  individual  unmediated  and  abstract  right  is 
transformed,  by  being  recognized,  into  an  element  of  the 
universal  will  and  knowledge.  Acquirement  of  property  and 
all  activity  relative  to  it  must  therefore  adopt  that  form 
which  is  characteristic  of  property,  in  its  universal  relations. 
Property  depends  solely  on  contract  and  on  the  legal  formalities 
necessary  to  prove  such  contract.  . . . 

Supplementary.  — Hegel  notes  the  necessity  of  the  formal- 
ities connected  with  the  holding  of  property  in  a community. 
In  reply  to  those  who  would  dispense  with  them,  he  says,  that 
they  are  the  essential  element,  making  explicit  and  positively 
asserting  the  existence  of  property  rights.  All  mere  sub- 
jectivity has  here  to  give  place  to  this  objective  form  or 
reality,  and  receive  from  it  security  and  stability. 

§ 218. 

Since  property  and  personality  have  legal  recognition  and 
validity  in  the  civic  community,  lazu-breaking  is  not  only  an 
offence  against  some  subjective-infinite , but  against  a universal 


THE  CIVIC  COMMUNITY. 


181 


principle,  whose  existence  has  a sure  and  strong  foundation 
in  itself.  We  arrive  here  at  the  point  of  view  that  estimates 
the  offence  according  to  the  dangerous  tendencies  it  has  for 
the  community  (society).  Such  tendencies  certainly  add 
to  the  magnitude  of  the  crime  ; but,  on  the  other  hand,  a 
community  whose  government  feels  secure,  overlooks  the 
external  bnportance  of  an  offence,  and  practices  greater 
clemency  in  its  punishment. 

{c)  The  Court  of  Justice. 

§ 219. 

When  justice,  in  its  legal  form,  gains  actual  existence  it  is 
self-dependent  ( für  sich ) ; that  is,  stands  independent  over 
against  the  particular  will  and  opinion  of  justice,  and  has  to 
make  itself  valid  as  being  universal.  This  recognition  and 
realization  of  justice  in  the  particular  cases,  without  the 
subjective  feeling  of  particular  interests,  belongs  to  a public 
power,  to  the  court  of  jjistice.  As  to  the  historical  origin  of 
courts  of  justice  and  of  judges,  it  matters  not  whether  they 
arose  from  patriarchal  relations,  from  force  or  from  free 
choice. 

§ 220. 

The  right  against  crime  in  the  form  of  revenge  (§  102)  is 
only  an  wiplicit  right  and  has  not  the  form  of  justice,  i.  e., 
is  not  just  as  to  its  mode  of  existence.  In  the  place  of 
the  offended  party  (the  individual),  the  offended  universal 
(the  community),  which  has  its  characteristic  actuality  in  the 
court,  enters,  and  undertakes  the  prosecution  and  punish- 
ment of  crime.  Hereby  the  penalty  of  crime  ceases  to  be 
the  merely  subjective  and  accidental  retaliation  of  revenge, 
and  is  transformed  into  the  true  reconciliation  of  justice 
with  itself  in  punishment.  This  punishment  is,  from  the 
objective  side,  the  reconciliation,  through  the  negation  of  the 


182 


E THI CALITY  (. SITTLICHKEIT ). 


crime,  of  the  self-restoring  law , which  thereby  gives  itself 
valid  actuality.  From  the  subjective  side  of  the  offender,  it 
is  the  reconciliation  of  his  own  law,  known  by  him  and 
established  for  his  protection , in  whose  execution  on  himself 
he  consequently  finds  the  satisfaction  of  justice,  in  fact, 
nothing  but  his  own  deed. 


§ 221. 

The  member  of  the  civil  community  has  the  right  to  appeal 
to  the  courts , as  well  as  the  duty  to  appear  in  court,  and  to 
accept  his  disputed  right  from  the  court  only  — (to  allow  the 
decision  of  the  courts  of  justice  to  be  supreme  and  final 
over  his  disputed  rights). 

Supplementary.  — Every  individual  must  not  only  have  the 
right  to  appeal  to  the  courts,  but  must  also  know  the  laws, 
else  this  right  would  be  of  little  use  to  him.  But  it  is  also 
the  duty  of  the  individual  to  appear  in  court.  In  feudal 
times,  the  powerful  nobles  often  refused  to  appear,  chal- 
lenged the  court,  and  acted  as  if  it  had  been  an  injustice  of 
the  courts  to  demand  their  appearance.  But  this  is  a 
condition  that  contradicts  the  true  conception  of  a court  of 
justice.  In  more  modern  times  the  prince  must  recognize 
the  authority  of  the  court  over  himself  in  private  affairs,  and 
in  free  states  his  cases  are  generally  lost. 

§ 222. 

Before  courts,  justice  must  have  the  characteristic  of 
being  demonstrable.  The  legal  procedure  enables  both  parties 
to  bring  forward  effectively  their  evidence  and  legal  claims, 
and  the  judge  to  get  fully  acquainted  with  the  case.  These 
steps  are  themselves  rights,  and  hence  their  manner  of  pro- 
cedure must  be  legally  determined.  Therefore  procedure  is 
an  essential  part  of  the  science  of  law. 


THE  CIVIC  COMMUNITY. 


i83 


§ 224. 


Just  as  the  public  proclamation  of  the  laws  is  a right  of 
the  subjective  consciousness,  so  also  is  the  publicity  of  the 
administration  of  justice.  It  follows  from  the  right  of  know- 
ing the  laws,  that  the  possibility  of  the  actualizatio/i  of  the 
laws  in  particular  cases,  should  be  publicly  known,  both  as 
to  the  course  of  external  events  and  as  to  legal  principles, 
since  the  history  of  a case  is  a universally  valid  history ; 
and,  though  the  case,  as  far  as  its  particular  content  is 
concerned,  is  of  interest  only  to  the  parties  in  question,  its 
universal  content  is  concerned  with  a principle  of  justice, 
whose  ' ‘ tion  touches  the  interest  of  all. 


The  ons  of  the  members  of  the  court  among 

themsf  the  case  before  decision,  are  expressions 

of  opinions  and  views  that  are  still  particular,  and  conse- 
quently not  of  public  nature. 


Judicial  activity,  as  the  application  of  the  law  to  par- 
ticular cases,  has  two  sides : first,  an  ascertaining  of  the 
nature  of  the  case  in  its  immediate  detail,  as,  for  example, 
whether  there  was  a contract  or  not ; whether  a certain 
illegal  act  has  been  committed;  who  has  committed  it;  and, 
in  criminal  cases,  the  ascertaining  of  the  thoughts  and 
volitions  that  led  to  the  action,  according  to  their  substan- 
tial, culpable  character  (§  119,  note);  secondly,  the  sub- 
sumption of  the  case  under  the  law,  whose  purpose  is  to 
restitute  justice.  In  criminal  cases,  the  determination  of 
the  punishment  falls  under  this  head.  These  two  classes 
of  decisions,  that  constitute  judicial  activity,  are  two  (essen- 
tially) different  functions. 


§ 225. 


184 


£ TH  IC  A LI  TV  (. SITTLICHKEIT ). 


§ 227. 

The  first  side,  the  ascertaining  the  case  in  its  immediate 
details  and  qualifications,  contains  by  itself  no  judicial  func- 
tion. It  is  a piece  of  information  such  as  any  educated 
person  may  have.  Since  the  subjective  element  of  the 
comprehension  and  intention  of  the  agent  (see  Part  II)  is 
essential  for  the  qualification  (a  true  estimate)  of  an  act,  and 
since  the  evidence  without  this  element  is  not  concerned 
with  objects  of  Reason  and  the  abstract  understanding, 
but  only  with  details,  circumstances,  and  objects  of  sense- 
perception  and  subjective  certainty  ; and  since,  hence,  such 
evidence  contains  no  absolutely  objective  determination, 
therefore,  the  ultimate  factor  in  the  decision  is  the  subjective 
convictio?i  and  conscience  (animi  sententia),  as  in  regard  to 
the  evidence,  which  depends  on  what  others  depose  and 
affirm,  the  oath  is  the  ultimate,  though  subjective  test. 

Supplementary.  — There  is  no  reason  to  hold  that  only  the 
judge  (juristische  Richter)  should  determine  the  facts  in  the 
case,  for  this  belongs  to  common  intelligence  and  not  merely 
to  legal  learning.  The  decision  as  to  what  are  the  facts  in 
the  case  depends  on  empirical  circumstances,  on  witnesses  of 
the  act  and  the  like,  and  then  again  on  facts  from  which 
conclusions  as  to  the  act  in  question  may  be  drawn,  and  that 
make  it  probable  or  improbable.  Here  certainty  is  sought, 
not  a truth  in  the  higher  sense,  for  truth  is  something 
altogether  eternal.  This  certainty  is  here  the  subjective 
conviction,  conscience,  and  the  question  is,  what  form  this 
certainty  should  take  in  the  administration  of  justice.  To 
demand  confession  of  the  culprit,  as  is  common  in  German 
courts  of  justice,  has  this  truth  in  it,  that  by  so  doing  the 
subjective  self-consciousness  is  satisfied,  since  the  sentence 
which  the  judge  pronounces  should  not  differ  in  the 
consciousness  of  the  convicted  person,  from  the  sentence  of 
his  own  conscience,  and  since  the  judgment  does  not  cease 


THE  CIVIC  COMMUNITY. 


185 

to  contain  an  alien  element  to  the  transgressor  until  he  has 
confessed  his  offence.  Here  is  the  difficulty  however,  that  the 
transgressor  may  refuse  to  confess,  and  thereby  the  interests 
of  justice  be  endangered.  But,  again,  if  the  subjective 
conviction  of  the  judge  is  to  be  supreme,  there  is  once  more 
a hardship,  since  man  is  no  longer  treated  as  a free  agent. 
This  mediation,  however,  takes  place  when  it  is  demanded 
that  the  verdict  of  guilty  or  not  guilty  should  come,  as  from 
the  soul  of  the  transgressor,  through  the  verdict  of  a jury.1 

The  Trial  by  Jury. 

§ 228. 

* * * * * 

The  right  of  self-consciousness,  the  moment  of  subjective 
freedom,  may  be  considered  as  the  substantial  point  of  view 
in  the  question  of  the  necessity  of  public  trial  and  trial  by 
jury.  To  this,  the  essential  of  what  can  be  said  on  the 
score  of  utility  in  favor  of  these  institutions,  can  be  reduced. 
From  other  considerations  and  upon  other  grounds,  it  is  quite 
possible  to  dispute  and  defend  one  way  or  another  this  or 
that  advantage  or  disadvantage,  but,  like  all  reasons  of 
forensic  argumentation,  these  arguments  are  secondary  and 
hence  not  decisive,  or  else  they  are  taken  from  other,  and 
perhaps  higher,  spheres  of  thought.  That  it  were  possible  to 
administer  justice  well,  perhaps  better,  with  purely  juristic 
courts  (i.  e.,  courts  without  juries)  than  with  other  institutions, 
does  not  here  concern  us  ; for  if  this  possibility  increased  to 
a probability,  yes  even  to  a necessity,  the  right  of  self-conscious- 
ness would  ever  retain  its  demands,  and  not  find  itself  satisfied. 

1 Hegel’s  substitute  of  the  verdict  of  a jury  for  the  confession  of  the 
criminal  is  clear,  if  we  remember  that  he  is  giving  an  exposition  of  the 
common  consciousness  which  the  criminal  implicitly  acknowledges.  His 
twelve  peers  state  their  opinion  of  the  relation  of  the  criminal’s  particular 
act  in  regard  to  the  acknowledged  common  good.  — p-  m.  m. 


1 86  ETHIC ALITY  (. SITTLICHKEIT ). 

When  the  knowledge  of  jurisprudence  (owing  to  the 
character  and  scope  of  this  science),  the  transactions  of  the 
courts  (legal  proceedings)  and  the  possibility  of  legal  prose- 
cution, become  the  property  of  an  exclusive  class  (the  legal 
profession);  and  when  the  very  terminology  is  in  a language 
that  is  unknown  to  those  of  whose  rights  it  treats  ; the 
members  of  the  civic  community  being  dependent  on  their 
onoi  activity,  their  oum  knowledge  ami  will,  are  held  as  aliens, 
and  as  minors,  in  relation  to  their  right,  a relation  that  is  really 
a species  of  serfdom  under  the  legal  profession.  And  this, 
though  their  rights  form  not  only  the  most  personal  and 
intimate,  but  the  substantial  and  rational  element  of  their 
knowledge  and  will. 

Even  though  they  have  the  right  to  come  bodily  into  court 
(in  judicio  stare ),  this  is  a right  of  small  value  when  they  may 
not  be  present  spiritually  with  their  own  intelligence,  and  the 
justice  that  they  gain,  remains  for  them  an  external  fate. 

§ 229. 

In  the  administration  of  justice  the  civic  community 
brings  itself  back  to  the  co7icept  of  the  unity  of  the  implicitly 
universal  with  subjective  particularity,  although  the  latter  is 
found  in  individual  cases  and  the  former  in  the  sense  of 
abstract  justice.  This  is  effected  by  the  Idea' s losing  itself 
in  the  particularity  and  by  its  separation  into  an  internal 
and  an  external  moment.  The  realization  of  this  unity  in 
the  extension  of  the  whole  sphere  of  particularity,  at  first 
as  relative  unification,  constitutes  the  organization  for  police- 
protection,  and  in  the  more  limited  but  more  concrete  totality, 
the  9)iu?iicipal  corporate. 

Supplementary.  — In  the  civic  community  the  universal  is 
only  the  necessary  ; in  the  social  relation  of  wants,  right 
alone,  as  such,  is  the  fixed.  But  this  right,  a limited  sphere, 
has  reference  only  to  the  protection  of  what  I have  : right 
as  such  is  welfare,  something  external.  But  this  welfare  is, 


THE  CIVIC  COMMUNITY.  187 

however,  in  the  system  of  wants,  an  essential  characteristic. 
Consequently  the  universal,  which  at  first  is  only  the  right, 
must  spread  itself  out  over  the  whole  field  of  particularity. 
Justice  is  something  great  in  the  civic  community  : good 
laws  make  the  state  flourish,  and  free  (private)  property  is  a 
fundamental  condition  for  its  splendor ; but  since  I am 
totally  entwined  in  particularity,  I have  a right  to  demand 
that  in  this  connected  whole  (the  civic  community)  my 
particular  welfare  also,  shall  be  furthered.  My  welfare,  my 
particular  interests,  must  be  taken  into  consideration,  and 
this  is  done  by  the  police-organization  and  the  municipal 
corporation. 

C.  The  Police  and  the  Municipal  Corporation. 

§ 230. 

In  the  system  of  wants,  the  subsistence  and  welfare  of  each 
individual  exists  as  a possibility  whose  actuality  is  conditioned 
by  the  individual’s  choice  and  natural  peculiarities,  as  well 
as  by  the  objective  system  of  wants  : through  the  adminis- 
tration of  justice  the  violation  of  property  (property-right) 
and  of  personality  is  annulled  (is  guarded  against).  The 
right  that  is  actual  iti  particularity  contains,  however,  also 
the  demand  that  the  accidental  infringements  of  the  rights  of 
this  or  that  end  shall  be  abolished , and  that  undisturbed  safety 
of  person  and  property  shall  be  established  in  the  form  of  the 
assurance  of  the  subsistence  and  welfare  of  the  individual  — 
in  other  words,  justice,  or  right,  as  actualized  in  the  par- 
ticular, demands  that  the  particular  welfare  (i.  e .,  the  welfare 
of  each  individual)  shall  be  treated  as  a right , and  shall  be 
actualized. 


§ 256. 

The  aim  of  the  municipal  corporation,  being  limited  and 
finite,  has  its  truth  in  the  independent  universal  aid  (the 

< 


i88 


ETHICALITY  (. SITTLICHKEIT ). 


State)  and  its  absolute  actuality.  The  same,  too,  is  true  of 
the  police  functions.  The  sphere  of  the  civic  community  is 
thereby  merged  into  the  State. 

City  and  country — the  former  the  location  of  civic  industry, 
that  is,  of  the  reflexion  that  individualizes  itself  and  centres 
in  itself  ; the  latter  the  location  of  the  ethicality  that  rests  on 
nature,  the  individuals  that  mediate  their  self-preservation  in 
relation  to  other  legal  persons,  and  the  family,  constitute  the 
two  still  ideal  phases  out  of  which,  as  their  true  ground , 
the  State  develops.  This  evolution  of  unmediated  ethicality 
through  the  differentiations  (. Entzweiung ) of  the  civic  com- 
munity to  the  State,  which  proves  itself  their  true  ground, 
and  only  such  an  evolution,  or  derivation,  is  the  scientific 
demonstration  of  the  concept  (. Begriff ) of  the  State.  Because 
in  this  evolution  the  scientific  concept  of  the  State  appears 
as  the  result , while  it  shows  itself  as  the  true  ground.  Hence 
that  mediation  and  that  appearance  abolish  and  transform 
themselves  into  immediacy.  In  reality,  therefore,  the  State 
is  always  rather  the  first , in  which,  later,  the  family  develops 
into  the  civic  community.  It  is  the  Idea  of  the  State  which 
separates  itself  into  these  two  moments.  In  the  develop- 
ment of  the  civic  community,  the  ethical  substance  wins  its' 
infinite  form , which  contains  the  following  two  phases  : 

(i)  The  infinite  differentiation  down  to  the  self-dependent 
( für-sich-seyende ) existence-in-itself  of  self-consciousness  ; and 
(2)  the  form  of  universality  which  is  in  education  and  culture, 
the  form  of  thought  in  which  the  spirit  becomes  objective 
and  actual  unto  itself  in  laws  and  institutions,  that  is,  in  its 
thought-out  will  as  organic  totality. 


THE  STATE. 


189 


THIRD  SECTION. 

The  State. 

§ 257. 

The  State  is  the  actuality  of  the  ethical  Idea;  it  is  the 
ethical  spirit  as  the  manifest  { offenbare ) substantial  will  that 
is  fully  self-cognizant  ( sich  selbst  deutliche'),  and  that  thinks 
and  knows  itself  and  realizes  {vollführt)  what  it  knows  and 
in  as  far  as  it  knows.  The  State  has  its  immediate  existence 
in  the  ethical  life  {Sitte)  and  in  the  self-consciousness  of  the 
individual ; in  his  knowing  and  doing  (in  his  knowledge  and 
activity)  it  has  its  mediated  existence,  just  as  the  individual 
has  his  substantial  freedom  in  the  State  as  in  his  own  essence, 
seed  and  product  of  activity. 

The  penates  are  the  intimate,  lower  gods,  the  national 
spirit  {Athene),  the  divine  that  k?iows  and  wills  itself  ; the 
devotion  to  family  ties  {pietät)  is  ethicality  deporting  itself 
in  feeling  : and  political  virtue  is  the  willing  of  the  conceived 
independent  end  (of  the  independent  ideal  end). 

§ 258. 

The  State,  as  the  actuality  of  the  substantial  will,  (which 
actuality  it  has  in  the  particular  selfconsciousness  raised  to 
its  universality)  is  the  independently  {an  und  für  sW/i)  rational. 
This  substantial  unity  is  absolute,  stable  end-for-itself 
{Selbstzweck)  in  which  freedom  gains  its  supreme  right, 
just  as  conversely  this  final  end  {Endzweck)  has  the  supreme 
right  over  against  the  individuals,  whose  supreme  duty  it  is  to 
be  members  of  the  State. 

Abstract  of  Remainder  of  §. 

As  long  as  the  interest  of  the  individual  as  such  is  alone  the 
final  end  of  human  federation,  we  have  only  the  civic  com- 


ETHICALITY  (. SITTLICHKEIT ). 


190 

munity,  not  the  State.  Those  who  confound  these  two 
concepts  ascribe  to  the  State  no  higher  purpose  than  the 
protection  of  person  and  property.  But  the  true  State  is 
objective  spirit,  and  the  individual  is  not  himself,  has  not 
objectivity  and  truth,  and  cannot  live  an  ethical  life  except 
as  a member  of  the  State.  To  live  a universal  life,  that  is, 
to  live  in  organic  communion  with  his  neighbors,  is  the  aim 
and  purpose  of  the  individual.  Rationality  in  general  is  the 
union  of  the  universal  and  particular,  and  here  it  is  the 
union  of  objective  and  subjective  freedom.  But  objective 
freedom  is  the  freedom  of  the  universal  substantial  will, 
and  subjective  freedom  is  that  of  the  individual.  Hence 
rationality,  or  concrete  freedom,  has  the  form  of  activity 
determined  by  ideal  and  hence  universal  laws.  Here  we 
have  nothing  to  do  with  the  historical  origin  of  the  State. 
Prove,  if  you  please,  that  this  or  that  State  began  with 
patriarchs  or  social  contract,  arose  from  fear  or  confidence, 
that  the  rulers  claimed  divine  right,  or  ruled  by  pure  force 
of  custom  ; and  you  have  only  shown  the  historical  manner 
in  which  this  or  that  State  appeared,  and  not  at  all  what  the 
State  is.  Philosophy  has  to  do  with  the  inner  thought-out 
concept  of  all  this. 

Rousseau’s  “social  contract”  theory  has  the  merit  of 
having,  both  as  to  form  and  content,  made  thought  in  the 
form  of  will, , the  principle  of  the  State.  But  as  he  knew  of 
no  will  but  the  individual  will,  his  universal  rational  Will 
became  nothing  but  a sum  of  individual  wills  ; and  con- 
sequently his  State  was  founded  on  nothing  better  than 
arbitrary  choice,  inclination,  and  express,  free  agreement. 
For  results,  see  the  French  revolution  and  what  came  after 
it.  The  objective  will  is  the  rational  State,  whether  the 
individual  recognizes  it  or  not  ; and  subjective  freedom  is 
only  half  of  the  truth. 

But  the  State  may  be  falsely  founded  not  only  on  internal 
particularity,  but  also  on  mere  external  elements,  such  as 


THE  STATE. 


191 

the  vicissitude  of  wants,  the  need  of  protection,  brute  force, 
wealth,  and  the  like.  Now  these  are  indeed  elements  in  the 
. historic  development  of  the  State,  but  certainly  not  in  its 
substance.  To  mistake  such  empirical  particularities  for  the 
foundation  of  the  State  is  to  be  a degree  more  superficial 
than  Rousseau.  Not  only  is  the  foundation  not  universal, 
but  it  is  not  even  the  particular  as  thought  and  will , but  only 
as  empirical  particularities.  So  void  of  reason  is  this  view, 
which  overlooks  the  infinite  and  rational  elements  in  the 
State,  that  it  cannot,  in  its  utter  lack  of  thought,  even  be 
said  to  be  inconsistent  with  itself. 

Supplementary  to  § 258. 

The  State  in  and  for  itself,  is  the  ethical  totality,  the 
actualization  of  freedom ; and  actual  freedom  (freedom 
actually)  is  the  absolute  end  of  Reason.  The  State  is  the 
spirit  that  dwells  in  the  world  and  realizes  itself  in  the 
world  through  consciousness , while  in  nature  the  spirit 
actualizes  itself  only  as  its  own  other,  as  dormant  spirit. 
Only  when  present  as  consciousness,  knowing  itself  as 
existing  objectivity,  is  this  spirit  the  State.  When  reasoning 
about  freedom  one  must  not  start  from  the  individual 
self-consciousness,  but  only  from  the  essential  nature  of 
self-consciousness,  for  whether  one  knows  it  or  not,  this 
essence  still  realizes  itself  as  an  independent  power  in  which 
the  single  individuals  are  only  moments  : it  is  the  course  of 
God  through  the  world  that  constitutes  the  State.  Its 
ground  is  the  power  of  Reason  actualizing  itself  as  will. 
When  conceiving  the  State,  one  must  not  think  of  particular 
States,  not  of  particular  institutions,  but  one  must  much 
rather  contemplate  the  Idea , God  as  actual  on  earth  ( wirk - 
lieh),  alone.  Every  State,  though  it  may  be  declared 
wretched  according  to  somebody’s  principles,  though  this  or 
that  imperfection  in  it  must  be  admitted  — possesses  always, 
if  it  belongs  to  the  developed  States  of  our  times,  the  essen- 


192 


E THICALITY  (SITTLICHKEIT) . 


tial  elements  of  its  true  existence.  But  since  it  is  easier  to 
discover  faults  than  to  understand  positive  characteristics, 
it  is  easy  to  fall  into  the  error  of  overlooking  the  internal 
organism  of  the  State  itself  in  dwelling  upon  extrinsic 
phases  of  it.  The  State  is  no  work  of  art,  it  exists  in  the 
world,  and  hence  in  the  sphere  of  choice,  accidence,  and 
error.  Hence  the  evil  behavior  of  its  members  can  disfigure 
it  in  many  ways.  But  the  most  deformed  ( hässlichste ) human 
being,  the  criminal,  the  invalid,  and  the  cripple  are  still 
always  living  human  beings  : the  affirmative,  life,  remains  in 
spite  of  all  defects,  and  here  we  have  to  do  with  this  affirm- 
ative alone. 


§ 259. 

The  Idea  of  the  State  has  (a)  immediate  actuality,  and  is 
the  individual  state  as  a self-related  ( sich  auf  sich  beziehender) 
organism,  i.  e.,  the  constitution , or  internal  national  organiza- 
tion  (inneres  Staatsrecht ) ; ( b ) the  Idea  passes  over  into 

the  relations  of  the  single  State  to  other  States  : the  inter- 
national rights;  and  (c ) it  is  the  universal  Idea  as  gejius  and 
absolute  power  in  relation  to  single  states  ; it  is  the  spirit, 
which  gives  itself  its  actuality  in  the  process  of  the  world's 
history. 

Supplementary.  — The  State,  as  actual,  is  essentially  an 
individual  state,  and,  still  more,  a particular  state.  Individ- 
uality must  be  distinguished  from  particularity.  The  former 
is  a moment  of  the  Idea  of  the  State  itself,  while  particularity 
belongs  to  history.  The  States,  as  such,  are  independent  of 
one  another,  and,  consequently,  the  relation  between  them 
can  be  only  external.  Hence  the  need  of  another  synthetic 
power  to  unite  them.  This  third  is  the  Spirit  (of  humanity) 
which  gives  itself  actuality  in  the  world’s  history,  and  which 
is  the  absolute  judge  over  single  States.  Several  States 
may,  as  a federation,  form  a supremacy  over  others,  and 
confederations,  like,  for  example,  the  Holy  Alliance,  may 


THE  STATE. 


193 


be  formed,  but  these  are  always  only  relative  and  limited, 
like  “the  eternal  peace.”  The  only  absolute  judge  who 
ever  makes  himself  valid  against  the  particular  is  the 
independent  spirit  who  presents  himself  as  the  universal 
and  as  the  active  genus  in  the  history  of  the  world.  (The 
spirit  of  humanity  is  the  spirit  of  God  as  actual  on  earth.) 

A.  Internal  Polity  or  National  Organization. 

§ 260. 

The  State  is  the  actuality  of  concrete  freedom.  In  con- 
crete freedom  all  personal  individuality  and  its  particular 
interests  find  their  complete  development  and  the  recogni- 
tion of  their  independent  rights  (as  we  have  seen  them  in 
the  sphere  of  the  family  and  of  the  civil  community)  in  this 
larger  unity.  This  occurs,  partly  through  these  individual 
interests  being  transformed  into  universal  interests,  and, 
partly  through  individuals  recognizing  in  thought  and  deed 
this  universal  as  being  their  own  substantial  spirit,  and 
energizing  for  it  as  for  their  own  final  end. 

Thus,  neither  is  the  universal  valid  or  realized  without 
the  particular  interests,  intelligence,  and  will  of  individuals, 
nor  do  individuals  live  only  for  the  latter  as  private  persons, 
but  have  also  an  independent  will  for  the  universal  and  an 
activity  conscious  of  this  end.  The  principle  of  the  modern 
State  has  this  enormous  strength  and  depth,  that  while  it 
allows  the  principle  of  subjectivity  to  evolve  itself  into  the 
independent  extreme  of  personal  particularity,  it,  at  the  same 
time,  brings  all  this  back  to  substantial  unity,  and  thus  gains 
the  subjective  extreme  in  the  substantial  unity. 

Supplementary.  — The  Idea  of  the  State  in  modern  times 
has  the  peculiarity  that  it  constitutes  the  realization  of 
freedom  not  according  to  subjective  inclination,  but  accord- 
ing to  the  concept  of  the  will,  that  is,  according  to  the 
universal  and  divine  element  of  freedom.  Those  are 


i94 


E TII IC  A LITY  (. SITTLICHKEIT ). 


imperfect  States  in  which  the  Idea  of  the  State  is  not  yet 
out  of  the  husks,  so  to-  speak,  in  which  its  particular  deter- 
minations have  not  yet  come  to  free  independence.  In 
the  States  of  classical  antiquity,  the  universal  element  was 
already  present,  but  the  particularity  was  not  yet  liberated 
and  brought  back  to  universality,  i.  e.,  to  the  common  end 
of  the  whole.  The  essence  of  the  modern  State  lies  in  this, 
that  the  universal  is  allied  to  the  full  liberty  of  particularity 
and  to  the  well-being  of  the  individuals.  Consequently,  the 
interests  of  the  family  and  the  civic  community  combine 
themselves  in  the  State.  But  they  do  so  in  such  a way 
that  the  universality  of  the  end  cannot  advance  without  the 
individual’s  own  knowledge  and  will,  which  must  retain 
their  right.  The  universal  must  consequently  manifest  itself 
in  action,  but  subjectivity  must  also  be  fully  and  vitally 
developed  (be  developed  in  all  its  fulness  and  life).  Only 
when  the  two  elements  are  preserved  in  their  full  force,  can 
the  State  be  considered  fully  articulated  and  truly  organized. 

§ 261. 

In  reference  to  the  spheres  of  private  rights  and  private 
welfare,  the  spheres  of  the  family  and  the  civic  commu- 
nity, the  State  is,  on  the  one  hand,  an  external  necessity. 
It  appears  as  their  own  higher  power,  to  whose  nature 
their  laws,  as  well  as  their  interests,  are  subordinated  and 
dependent.  But  on  the  other  hand,  the  State  is  the 

immart&nt  end  of  these  lower  spheres  and  has  its  strength 
in  the  unity  of  its  universal  final  aim,  and  the  particular 
interests  of  the  individuals,  because  they  have  duties  toward 
the  State  in  just  so  far  as  they  have  rights  in  reference 
to  it  (§  155). 

Montesquieu,  especially,  as  we  have  before  remarked, 
has  grasped  and  attempted  to  develop  in  detail  in  his 
renowned  work,  The  Spirit  of  the  Law , the  thought  of  the 


THE  STATE. 


J95 


dependence  of  laws  (especially  those  relating  to  private 
rights)  on  the  definite  character  of  the  State.  In  other 
words,  he  holds  the  philosophical  view  that  considers  the 
part  only  in  its  relation  to  the  whole. 

Duty,  primarily,  is  conduct  towards  something  inde- 
pendent, universal,  and  substantial  for  me,  and  on  the 
other  hand,  rights  are  the  determinate  existence  of  this 
substantial  element,  and  hence  the  side  of  its  particularity 
and  of  my  particular  freedom.  Hence  duty  and  right 
appear,  at  the  formal  stage,  as  divided  among  different 
phases  and  persons.  The  State,  as  the  ethical  sphere,  as 
the  interpenetration  of  the  substantial  and  the  particular, 
contains  the  principle  that  my  obligation  to  the  substantial 
is  likewise  the  characteristic  form  of  existence  ( Dasein ) of 
my  particular  freedom,  that  is  to  say,  in  the  State  duty 
and  right  are  united  in  one  and  the  same  rclatio)i. 

But  further,  in  the  State  the  different  moments  (duty  and 
right)  arrive  at  their  characteristic  form  and  reality,  and  thus 
the  distinction  between  duty  and  right  reappears.  Hence 
they  are  (just  because  they  are  implicitly,  (an  sich),  i.  e., 
formally,  identical)  distinct  as  to  their  content.  In  the  moral 
sphere  and  in  that  of  private  right,  the  actual  necessity  of 
the  relation  is  not  present,  and  hence  there  is  only  an 
abstract  similarity  of  content ; that  which,  in  this  abstract 
sphere,  is  a right  to  one  ought  also  to  be  the  right  to 
another,  and  what  is  one’s  duty  should  also  be  other’s 
duty.  Such  absolute  identity  of  rights  and  duties  exists  only 
as  similar  identity  of  content  in  the  determination  that  this 
content  is  itself  the  wholly  universal  principle,  that  is,  the 
One  Principle  of  duty  and  right,  the  personal  liberty  of 
man.  Slaves  have,  therefore,  no  duties  because  they  have 
no  rights,  and,  conversely,  no  rights  because  no  duties. 
(We  do  not  here  speak  of  religious  duties.)  But  in  the 
concrete  Idea  developing  itself  in  itself,  these  its  moments 
differentiate  themselves,  and  in  their  full  determination  they 


I96  E THICALITY  (. SITTLICHKEIT ). 

have  also  a different  content.  In  the  family,  the  son  has 
not  rights  with  the  same  content  as  he  has  duties  in  relation 
to  the  father,  nor  has  the  citizen  rights  with  the  same  content 
as  duties  in  relation  to  prince  and  government. 

This  concept  of  the  union  of  duty  and  right  is  one  of  the 
most  important  characteristics  of  States,  and  constitutes  their 
inner  strength. 

The  abstract  side  of  duty  comes  no  further  than  to  ignore 
and  condemn  the  particular  as  an  unessential  and,  in  itself, 
unworthy  element.  But  the  concrete  conception,  the  Idea , 
shows  that  the  element  of  particularity  is  just  as  essential, 
and  hence  its  satisfaction  absolutely  necessary.  The  indi- 
vidual must  in  one  way  or  another,  in  his  performance  of 
duty,  find  his  own  interests  and  his  own  satisfaction  or 
recompense  ; some  right  must  grow  out  of  his  relation  to 
the  State,  by  reason  of  which  the  universal  interest  becomes 
his  particular  interest.  Particular  interests  are  surely  not  to 
be  put  aside  or  simply  suppressed,  but  should  be  harmonized 
with  the  universal  interest.  The  individual,  being  a subject1 
in  relation  to  his  duties,  finds  in  their  performance,  as  a 
citizen,  protection  of  his  person  and  property,  care  for  his 
own  particular  welfare,  and  the  satisfaction  of  his  substantial 
essence,  the  personal  consciousness  of  being  a member  of 
this  totality.  Such  fulfilment  by  citizens  of  duties,  as 
labors  and  business  for  the  State,  constitutes  the  preservation 
and  permanence  of  the  State.  But  according  to  the  abstract 
view,  the  universal  interest  would  only  be  that  its  work  and 
business  should  be  performed  as  duties. 

Abstract  of  Supplementary  §■ 

Everything  depends  on  the  true  union  of  universality  and 
particularity  in  the  State.  In  the  ancient  States  the  will 
of  the  State  was  absolute,  without  reference  to  the  subjective 
interests  of  individuals.  The  modern  State  honors  the 


1 Subject  in  the  political  sense  ( Unterthan  not  Subjekt). 


THE  STATE. 


197 


individual.  Every  duty  to  the  State  is  also  a right  of  the 
individual.  The  State  is  simply  the  organization  of  the  con- 
cept of  freedom.  It  is  the  universal  condition  necessary  for 
the  realization  of  particular  end  and  individual  welfare. 

§ 262. 

The  actual  Idea , the  Spirit,  divides  itself  into  the  two 
ideal  spheres  of  its  concept  (the  family  and  the  civic  com- 
munity). This  is  the  sphere  of  its  finitude.  Here,  in  order 
to  return  from  this  explicit  ideality  of  phases  as  infinite 
actual  spirit,  it  assigns  these  spheres  the  material  for  this 
its  finite  actuality.  This  finite  actuality  is  given  to  indi- 
viduals as  a multitude , so  that  this , allotment  to  particular 
individuals  appears  to  be  mediated  through  circumstances, 
chance,  and  free  choice  (§  185  and  note). 

Abstract  of  § 263,  § 264  and  § 265. 

In  place  of  an  abstract  of  some  of  these  paragraphs,  I 
borrow  the  following  expository  paraphrase  from  Dr.  Morris’ 
volume.1 

“ The  State,  we  have  said,  is  the  actualization  of  concrete 
freedom.  And  this  is  the  same  as  to  say  that  the  State  is, 
in  its  measure,  the  actualization  of  the  Idea  of  Man  ; that  it 
is  not  simply  a contingent  means  of  human  perfection,  but 
is  also  this  perfection  itself  ; that,  in  brief,  the  State  is  Man, 
standing  relatively 2 complete  in  that  fulness  and  wholeness 

1 Hegel’s  Philosophy  of  History,  by  Geo.  S.  Morris,  Ph.D.  pp.  84-S6. 
Griggs  & Co.  Chicago,  1887. 

2 “ Relatively,”  I say,  in  order  to  prevent  a possible  misconception. 
Relatively,  though  with  an  inferior  degree  of  truth,  the  same  may  be 
said  of  the  Family  which,  in  the  text,  is  asserted  of  the  State.  But,  as 
we  shall  see  later,  the  State  itself  is  organic  to  a larger  life  and  actuality 
of  the  human  spirit,  or  of  the  “ idea  of  man,”  in  universal  history;  while 
universal  history,  again,  is  organic  to  the  perfect  consummation  of 
humanity  through  the  discovery  of  the  true  will  of  man  in  the  will  of 
God,  the  adoption  of  the  latter  as  the  inviolable  norm  of  human  action, 
and  the  consequent  establishment  of  man  in  his  spiritual  perfection  and 
completeness  as  a co-worker  with  and  child  of  God. 


E THICALITY  (. SITTLICHKEIT ). 


198 

of  developed  being  which  the  idea  of  man  as  a rational  being 
implies.  And  it  is  this  by  virtue  of  a process  which,  just 
because  it  is  rather  organic  than  merely  mechanical,  has  the 
form  of  a process  of  self-realization. 

To  illustrate  : The  actual  tree  is  such  only  by  virtue 
of  a process  of  growth.  In  this  process  the  tree  becomes 
nothing  other  than  itself, — it  realizes  itself.  It  does  this, 
further,  by  separating  itself  into  its  natural  parts  or 
members,  — roots  and  branches.  To  each  it  allows  a 
separate  or  distinct  existence,  and  yet  holds  them  all 
together  in  the  unity  of  one  organic  and  living  whole.  We 
may  say  that  the  tree  disperses  or  distributes  itself  among 
its  members,  and  this  as  the  very  condition,  on  the  ful- 
filment of  which,  the  manifestation  of  its  universal  life 
and  power,  and  the  actualization  of  its  organic  unity  (or  the 
actualization  of  the  “idea  of  the  tree”)  irrevocably  depend. 
Moreover,  the  tree  is  not  an  after-result  of  the  existence 
of  the  roots  and  branches  : when  they  begin  to  exist,  its 
existence  also  begins.  So  it  is  with  the  State.  The  roots 
of  the  State  are  families,  and  its  branches  are  the  institutions 
of  civil  society.  Its  material  is  individuals.  These  take 
their  places  under  the  mentioned  institutions,  directed  by 
circumstances,  by  caprice,  or  by  personal  choice.  The 
element  of  “subjective  freedom”  has  here  its  play.  But  these 
institutions  themselves  have  obviously  a universal  or  general 
character  ; and  the  individual  in  recognizing  them,  and  in 
maintaining  himself  in  his  own  chosen  place  under  them, 
recognizes  and  devotes  himself  to  the  service  of  a universal 
with  which,  by  his  own  deliberate  choice,  he  has  identified 
himself. 

But  the  universality  of  these  institutions  has  its  ground 
in,  and  is  the  manifestation  and  reflection  of,  that  ethical 
“universal”  which  we  term  the  invisible  State  or  nation, 
or,  more  explicitly,  the  spirit  of  the  nation,  — the 
universal  spirit  of  man,  as  it  takes  form  and  declares  itself 


THE  STATE. 


199 


in  the  particular  life  of  the  nation.  Thus  regarded,  they 
make  up  the  constitution  of  the  nation  ; they  are  the  reason 
of  the  nation,  developed  and  actualized  in  particular  forms. 
They  are,  therefore,  the  ‘ steadfast  basis  of  the  State  ; they 
immediately  determine  the  temper  of  the  individual  citizens 
toward  the  State,  and  especially  their  confidence  in  it  ; and 
they  are  the  pillars  of  the  public  freedom,  since  in  them 
particular  (individual)  freedom  is  realized  in  a rational  form; 
and  they  thus  involve  an  intrinsic  union  of  freedom  and 
necessity,’  or  are,  as  it  were,  the  living  and  visible  body  of 
an  interior,  organic,  and  steadfast  liberty. 

“ But  institutions  by  themselves  are  impersonal  and  uncon- 
scious. Their  existence,  as  the  above  comparison  of  them 
to  the  branches  of  a tree  implies,  is  assimilated  in  kind  to 
that  of  a natural  organism.  The  law  of  freedom,  as  exempli- 
fied in  than  alone , is  like  a natural  law,  inflexible,  unreflecting, 
without  shadow  of  turning.  In  particular,  they  contain  in 
themselves,  as  thus  viewed  and  existing,  no  germ  of  develop- 
ment. They  are  the  phenomena  and  product  of  a public 
spirit,  which  they  accordingly  implicitly  presuppose,  and 
which  must  distinctly  declare  and  develop  itself  in  the  form 
of  clear,  self-knowing  intelligence  and  will,  in  order  that  the 
form  of  necessity  under  which  institutional  freedom  existed 
may  itself  be  changed  to  freedom.  This  spirit  we  must 
consider  and  speak  of  as  the  true  substance  of  the  State.” 

Supplementary  to  § 265. 

It  has  already  been  noted  that  the  sacredness  of  the  oath, 
and  the  institutions  in  which  the  civic  community  appears 
as  ethical,  constitute  the  stability  of  the  whole  (the  State). 
Through  these  institutions  the  universal  becomes  the 
concern  of  each  and  every  citizen.  It  all  depends  on 
this,  that  the  law  of  reason  and  the  particular  freedom  of 
individuals  penetrate  each  other,  so  that  my  particular  end 
becomes  identical  with  the  universal;  else  the  State  is  a 


200 


E TH  IC  ALI  TY  (. SITTLICHKEIT ). 


castle  built  in  the  air  (else  there  is  absolutely  no  rational 
foundation  for  the  State).  The  feeling  of  self-possession 
( Selbstgefühl ')  of  the  individual  constitutes  its  actuality,  and 
its  stability  consists  in  the  identity  of  these  two  sides  of 
its  being  (universality  and  particularity).  It  has  often  been 
said  that  the  end  of  the  State  is  the  happiness  of  the 
citizens,  and  this  is,  indeed,  true.  If  it  goes  ill  with  the 
citizens,  if  their  subjective  ends  are  not  satisfied,  if  they  do 
not  find  that  the  State,  as  such,  is  the  mediation  of  this 
satisfaction,  the  State  stands  on  a very  weak  foundation. 

§ 266. 

But  the  spirit  is  not  only  actual  and  objective  unto  itself  as 
this  necessity  and  as  a realm  of  appearance,  but  also  as  the 
inner  essence  and  ideality  of  such  appearance.  Thus  this 
substantial  universality  is  object  and  end  unto  itself,  and 
this  necessity  exists  hereby  just  as  much  in  the  form  of 
liberty. 

§ 267. 

The  necessity  in  the  ideality  of  these  elements  is  the 
evolution  of  the  Idea  within  itself.  It  is,  as  subjective  sub- 
stantiality, the  political  disposition:  and  as  objective , in 
distinction  from  the  o?-ganism  of  the  State,  it  is  the  political 
State  proper  and  its  constitution. 

Supplementary.  — The  unity  of  the  freedom  that  knows 
and  wills  itself,  exists  primarily  as  necessity.  The  sub- 
stantial is,  at  this  stage,  the  subjective  existence  of  the  indi- 
viduals ; the  other  phase  of  the  necessity  is  the  organism; 
that  is  to  say,  the  spirit  is  a 'process  in  itself,  articulates 
itself  in  itself,  posits  distinctions  in  itself,  through  which 
it  circulates. 

§ 268. 

This  political  disposition  is  termed  patriotism  in  general, 
as  certainty  resting  in  truth  (mere  subjective  certainty 


THE  STATE. 


201 


does  not  proceed  from  truth  and  is  nothing  but  opinion); 
and  the  will  that  has  become  custom  is  simply  the  result 
of  the  institutions  existing  in  the  State,  as  of  those  in 
which  rationality  is  actually  present.  So,  too,  patriotism  is 
manifested  by  activity  in  harmony  with  these  institutions.  — 
This  disposition  is,  in  general,  confidence  in  the  State,  which 
may  attain  to  more  or  less  cultured  insight.  It  is  the 
consciousness  that  my  substantial  and  particular  interest 
is  preserved  and  contained  in  the  interest  and  aim  of  an 
other  (here  the  State)  in  its  relation  to  me  as  an  individual. 
Hereby  the  State  immediately  is  no  longer  an  other , a 
stranger  to  me  ; and  the  ego  is  free  in  this  consciousness. 

Abstract  of  Rest  of  §. 

We  ought  not  to  understand  by  patriotism  only  extraor- 
dinary actions  and  sacrifices.  It  is  essentially  that  dispo- 
sition which  is  accustomed  to  recognize  the  communal  life, 
in  the  ordinary  circumstances  and  relations  of  life,  as  the 
substantial  foundation  and  final  purpose  of  all  activity. 
But  as  men  find  it  easier  to  be  magnanimous  than  just,  so 
they  also  easily  convince  themselves  that  they  possess  that 
heroic  patriotism,  in  order  to  save  themselves  the  trouble  of 
having  this  everyday  patriotism. 

It  is  very  much  easier  to  criticise  an  institution  than  to 
understand  the  truth  and  necessity  at  its  bottom.  In 
questions  of  religion  it  is  easy  to  say  that  this  or  that  is 
superstition,  but  infinitely  harder  to  understand  the  truth 
of  it.  We  forget,  for  our  particular  interests,  that  on  which 
our  whole  existence  depends.  Few  of  us  are  conscious  of 
the  fact  when  safely  passing  down  a street  at  night,  that 
this  safety  is  the  result  of  an  institution  ; and  if  we  are, 
we  are  likely  to  ascribe  it  to  the  mere  force  of  the  State, 
when,  in  reality,  the  State  coheres  because  of  the  funda- 
mental sense  of  order  which  the  great  majority  have. 


202 


ETHICALITY  (. SITTLICHKEIT ). 


§ 269. 

-V.  .U.  .U.  -M. 

•7T  Tv  "vr  "7v  Tv 

Supplementary.  — The  State  is  an  organism,  that  is,  it  is 
the  evolution  of  the  Idea  into  all  its  differentiations  or 
different  forms  or  organs  of  itself.  These  differentiated 
sides  are  thus  the  different  powers  of  the  State  and  its 
affairs  and  activity,  through  which  the  universal  continues 
to  bring  forth  itself  and  maintain  itself  in  a necessary 
manner,  in  conformity  with  the  Idea  (of  the  State).  This 
organism  is  the  political  constitution  ; 1 it  proceeds  eternally 
from  the  State,  as  also  the  State  maintains  itself  through 
the  constitution.  If  the  two  fall  outside  of  each  other  ; if 
the  two  sides  become  free  from  each  other,  there  is  no 
longer  that  unity  posited  which  the  constitution  as  an 
organism  produces.  Here  the  fable  of  the  stomach  and 
the  other  organs  finds  its  application.  For  it  is  the  nature 
of  an  organism  that,  if  its  parts  do  not  all  merge  into 
unison  of  activity  ; if  one  posits  itself  as  independent,  all 
go  to  destruction.  In  considering  the  State,  one  gets 
nowhere  with  predicates,  principles,  and  the  like,  since 
the  State  must  be  comprehended  as  an  organism.  To 
attempt  any  other  course,  is  just  as  idle  as  to  try,  by  the 
aid  of  predicates,  to  comprehend  the  nature  of  God,  whose 
life  I must,  much  rather,  behold  (anschauen)  in  its  very  self. 

§ 270. 

That  the  purpose  and  end  of  the  State  is  the  universal 
interest  as  such,  and  the  satisfaction  therein  of  the  particular 
interests  as  to  their  substance,  is  (i)  the  State’s  abstract 
actuality , or  substantiality  ; but  this  is  (2)  the  State’s 
necessity  when  the  actuality  of  the  State  divides  itself  in  the 

1 By  constitution  ( Verfassung ),  Hegel  does  not  refer  only  to  the 
constitution  on  paper,  but  to  the  principle  on  which  and  by  which  the 
State  is  constituted. 


THE  STATE. 


203 

conceptual  distinctions  (concept-distinctions)  of  its  activity. 
These  distinctions  become,  through  this  substantiality, 
really  actual  and  stable  determinations,  or  powers  ; (3)  but 
this  substantiality  itself  is  the  self-conscious  and  self-willing 
spirit,  as  having  passed  through  the  forni  of  culture  and  educa- 
tion. Hence  the  State  knows  what  it  wills,  and  knows  it 
in  its  universality  as  something  thought.  Therefore  the 
State  acts  according  to  conscious  ends,  known  principles, 
and  according  to  laws  that  exist  not  only  in  themselves 
(implicitly),  but  also  for  consciousness  ; and,  also,  in  as 
far  as  its  actions  have  reference  to  present  circumstances 
and  conditions,  they  are  determined  by  the  exact  acquaint- 
ance with  such  relations. 

It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  Hegel  always  and  every- 
where shows  his  deep  and  vital  interest  in  religion,  as  one 
of  the  absolute  forms  of  truth.  He  is  perpetually  recurring 
to  it  and  giving  extended  expositions  of  its  character, 
function  and  place  in  the  system  of  absolute  truth.  We  are 
not  surprised,  therefore,  at  finding  here  a long  digression 
on  the  relation  of  the  State  to  Religion.  In  place  of  this 
long  translation,  however,  we  deem  it  of  more  value  to  give 
Dr.  Morris’ 1 very  free  exposition  of  Hegel’s  general  view  on 
the  subject : 

“ Is  religion  the  foundation  of  the  State  ? Undoubtedly 
it  is,  and  the  whole  of  his  Philosophy  of  the  State  and  of 
History  is  a progressive  demonstration  of  this  truth,  and 
of  the  sense  in  which  it  must  be  understood.  The  State, 
history,  and  indeed  all  natural  existence,  are  the  gradual 
actualization  or  manifestation  of  an  Absolute  Reason, 
which  can  and  must  exist  in  its  eternal  fulness  only  as 
Absolute  Spirit,  or  God.  In  the  ethical  world,  in  particular, 
we  are  in  process  of  seeing  how  each  lower  grade  presup- 
poses, as  its  substantial  foundation,  proximately  the  next 
higher  one  and  then  absolutely  all  higher  ones.  So  the 

1 pp.  88  and  89  of  volume  previously  cited. 


204 


E TH I CA  LI  TV  (. SITTLICHKEIT ). 


Family  presupposes  or  calls  for  Civil  Society,  while  the 
State  is  similarly  presupposed  by  both.  The  particular 
State,  again,  the  nation,  with  its  definite  national  spirit,  is 
organic  to,  and  hence  presupposes,  a still  larger  life  of  the 
human  spirit,  — a life  which  at  once  takes  up  into  itself 
and  also  transcends  the  limits  of  separate  national  exist- 
ences, and  of  which  universal  history  is  both  the  expression 
and  the  demonstration. 

But  man,  conceived  and  known  as  the  spirit  immanent 
in  universal  history,  as  universal  humanity,  or  Weltgeist , 
is  found  to  be  unable  to  stand  alone.  He  is  relative  to 
something  else,  which  he  presupposes  as  his  ‘substantial 
foundation’;  he  is  not  absolute.  The  whole  historic  life  of 
humanity  is  organic  to,  and  dependent  on,  the  life  and 
operation  of  the  absolute  and  eternal  Spirit,  of  whose 
thought  and  will  it  closes  the  demonstration,  begun  at  the 
lowest  grade  of  finite  existence. 

When  the  natural  and  ethical  worlds  are  comprehended 
as  the  progressive  incarnation  of  reason  in  ‘reality,’  God, 
who  is  the  ‘absolute  truth,’  is  seen  to  be  the  eternal 
presupposition  and  the  omnipresent  and  actual  condition 
of  all  existence  whatever,  but  most  conspicuously  of  the 
existence  of  the  ‘ethical  world.’  If  all  things  whatsoever 
are,  in  their  degree,  the  revelation  and  incarnation  of  that 
supreme  reason  in  which  absolute  and  eternal  Being  — God, 
Absolute  Spirit  — consists,  and  if  it  is  thus  true  of  all  things 
that  they  are  a present  and  actual  revelation  of  divine  will 
and  spiritual  being,  much  more  obviously  is  this  true  of  an 
ethical  organism,  an  historic  power,  like  the  State.  So 
Hegel  declares  that  ‘ the  State  is  divine  will,  in  the  form 
of  a present  (national)  spirit,  unfolding  itself  in  the  actual 
shape  and  organization  of  an  (ethical)  world.’ 

The  whole  normal  process  of  history,  to  which  all  the  life 
of  man,  in  Family,  Civil  Society,  and  State  is  organic,  consists 
in  the  progressive  realization  of  concrete  human  freedom,  — 


THE  STATE. 


205 


that  is,  of  the  essential  spiritual  nature  of  man,  through 
the  consc'ous  recognition  of  God  as  the  ‘foundation’  of  all 
the  true  life  of  the  human  spirit,  and  of  the  divine  will  as 
the  true  substance  or  content  of  the  human  will.  In  the 
whole  process  of  history,  or  of  the  ‘ethical  world,’  humanity 
is  progressively  learning,  and  showing  that  it  is  learning, 
that  its  true  language  is,  ‘ Lo ! I am  come  to  do  thy  will, 
O God  ! ’ And  so  the  foundation  of  the  State  is  indeed, 
and  in  the  most  radical  and  comprehensive  sense,  religion, 
which,  says  Hegel,  has  ideally  ‘the  absolute  truth  for  its 
content.’  Upon  this  general  truth,  both  in  its  generality 
and  in  its  specific  applications,  our  author  finds  occasion, 
as  we  shall  see,  to  insist  at  almost  every  step  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  philosophy  of  history,  — the  spiritual  story  of 
humanity. 

But  when  religion  is  otherwise  regarded ; when  it  is 
identified  with  immediate  feeling,  or  with  an  intuition  which 
claims  exemption  from  the  arduous  labor  of  philosophic 
comprehension  ; when,  accordingly,  it  degenerates  into 
fanaticism  and  narrow  dogmatism,  restricting  the  presence 
of  God  in  history  within  the  limits  of  a select  religious 
organization,  and  treating  the  State  as  at  the  best  only  a 
soulless  and  godless  mechanism,  — then  the  claim  that 
religion  is  the  foundation  of  the  State  must  be  rejected, 
or  rather  corrected.  Then,  especially,  must  the  spiritual 
character  of  the  State  and  its  inherent  divine  right  be 
emphasized.” 

§ 272-§  341. 

It  is  not  necessary,  for  the  purpose  of  the  present  volume, 
to  give  even  a rhumb  of  Hegel’s  exposition  of  the  political 
state,  as  the  organized  and  publicly-expressed  will  of  its 
people.  Its  articulate  form  follows  from  the  distinction  of 
the  universal,  the  particular,  and  the  individual,  and  their 
combination  in  a concrete  and  living  activity.  He  declares 


2o6 


ETHICALITY  (. SITTLICHKEIT ). 


that,  as  to  form,  that  of  a constitutional  monarchy  is  the 
peculiar  achievement  of  the  modern  world,  emphasizing 
the  constitutional  and  representative  elements  as  well  as 
the  monarchical  one.  We  have  essentially  the  same  articu- 
lation of  the  three  elements  in  our  monarchical  democracy, 
and  England  the  same  in  her  democratic  monarchy. 

He  was  specially  favorable  to  the  English  form,  in 
reference  to  which  he  uttered  his  well-known  saying  that 
the  king  was  “ but  a dot  upon  the  The  King  or  the 
President  may  equally  be  the  mouth-piece  of  the  personality 
of  the  State,  the  crown,  — or  the  necessary  dot  over  the 
— of  the  whole  moral  organism  of  the  State.  What  he 
says  about  laws,  as  the  express  forms  of  the  content  of 
substantial  freedom  ; of  the  constitution  as  the  express  will 
of  the  people ; of  the  function  and  moral  temper  of  the 
officers  in  the  whole  department  of  civil  (public)  service ; 
of  suffrage  being  restricted  to  representatives  of  definite 
interests  organized  under  the  commonwealth;  of  freedom 
and  equality ; of  the  double  form  and  worth  of  public 
opinion,  and  of  war  as  an  ethical  factor,  is  admirable. 

So,  too,  what  he  says  as  to  ( b ) international  policy  is 
admirable.  He  recognized  that  any  one  national  spirit  is 
a limited  one,  that  no  one  State  can  be  the  “ terrestrial 
god,”  or  realize  the  full  nature  of  man  as  a political  animal. 
Hence  he  turns  to  (c)  universal  history  to  find  the  law  of 
the  development  of  man  as  man.  Here  he  gives  his  inter- 
pretation of  the  autobiography  of  humanity,  whose  indi- 
viduals are  nations,  progressively  and  consciously  realizing 
the  idea  of  freedom,  and  entering  upon  their  rightful 
heritage.  It  is  thus  throughout  an  ethical  consideration  of 
universal  history,  an  ethical  estimation  of  the  course  of 
man’s  thoughts  and  deeds,  under  Divine  guidance,  to  the 
largest  and  most  rational  form  of  self-realization. 


THE  STATE. 


207 


C.  Universal  History. 

§ 341. 

Universal  spirit  has  the  element  of  determinate  being  in 
several  forms  : — in  art,  that  of  sensuous  form  and  symbol, 
in  religion,  that  of  sentiment  and  pictorial  conceptions,  in 
philosophy,  that  of  pure,  free  thought ; while  in  universal 
history  it  is  that  of  the  spiritual  actuality  of  humanity  in 
the  whole  circle  of  its  internal  and  external  activity.  The 
history  of  the  world  is  the  judgment  of  the  world,  because 
it  contains,  in  its  self-dependent  universality,  all  special 
forms  — the  family,  civil  society,  and  nation,  reduced  to 
ideality,  i.  e.  to  subordinate  but  organic  members  of  itself. 
It  is  the  task  of  the  spirit  to  produce  all  these  special  forms. 

§ 342. 

Further,  universal  history  is  not  the  mere  judgment  of  its 
own  power,  i.  e .,  it  is  not  the  abstract  and  irrational  necessity 
of  blind  fate.  But  inasmuch  as  it  is  inherently  rational  and 
self-conscious,  it  is  rather  the  evolution  of  the  phases  of 
reason  and,  consequently,  of  its  self-consciousness  and 
freedom ; it  is  the  actualization  and  interpretation  of 
universal  spirit. 

§ 343. 

The  true  history  of  the  spirit  is  its  own  deed,  for  spirit  is 
real  only  so  far  as  it  is  activity.  And  the  true  deed  of  spirit 
is  to  make  itself  its  own  object,  to  comprehend  itself  in  its 
own  self-exposition.  Such  comprehension  is  its  vital  prin- 
cipal, and  the  fulfilment  of  this  comprehension  is  at  the 
same  time  its  own  alienation  ( Entäusserung ) and  transition. 
And  spirit  returning  back  into  itself  out  of  this  alienation  is 
the  spirit  of  the  higher  stage  in  relation  to  itself  as  it  existed 
in  its  first  comprehension. 


2o8 


£ THICALITY  (. SITTLICHKEIT ). 


Here  arises  the  question  concerning  the  education  and 
perfectibility  of  the  human  race.  Those  who  maintain  the 
perfectibility  of  humanity  have  intuitively  anticipated  some- 
thing of  the  nature  of  spirit  — of  its  nature  to  have  Tvwdi 
crsavrov  as  the  law  of  its  being  and  to  thus  reach  a higher 
stage  than  that  of  mere  existence.  But,  for  those  who  deny 
this  view,  spirit  has  been  a mere  name,  and  history  a merely 
superficial  play  of  accidental  human  passions  and  struggles. 
Though  they  professedly  hold  to  faith  in  a supreme  power 
and  plan  of  providence,  these  terms  remain  dead  con- 
ceptions, for  they  expressly  say  that  the  plan  of  Providence 
forever  remains  inconceivable  and  unknowable. 

§ 344. 

In  this  labor  of  the  world-spirit,  nations  and  individuals 
appear  in  all  their  special  forms,  which  have  their  actuality 
and  exposition  in  their  whole  circle  of  existence.  They  are 
conscious  of  these  latter  and  profoundly  interested  in  them, 
and  yet  they  are,  at  the  same  time,  the  unconscious  tools 
and  organic  phases  of  that  inner  labor  of  the  world-spirit. 
They  arise  and  they  also  vanish  in  this  task  of  the  world- 
spirit,  which  thereby  prepares  and  works  out  its  transition 
into  the  next  higher  stage. 

§ 345. 

Justice  and  virtue,  violence  and  vice,  talents  and  their 
deeds,  small  and  great  passions,  guilt  and  innocence,  the 
glory  of  individuals  and  nations,  independence,  the  fortunes 
and  misfortunes  of  empires  and  individuals  have  their 
definite  significance  and  worth  in  this  sphere  of  conscious 
actuality  and  find  therein  their  judgment  and  their  still 
imperfect  justice.  But  the  history  of  the  world  lies  beyond 
all  such  points  of  view.  In  it,  that  necessary  phase  of  the 
Idea  of  the  world-spirit,  which  is  at  any  time  existent, 
receives  its  absolute  right:  people,  with  all  their  deeds,  who 


THE  STATE. 


209 


live  in  this  phase,  receive  their  completion,  their  fortune  and 
renown. 

§ 346. 

History  is  the  formation  of  spirit  into  deed,  into  the  form 
of  immediate  natural  actuality.  Hence  the  phases  of  the 
development  are  present  as  immediate  natural  principles. 
And  because  of  their  being  merely  natural,  they  are  various 
and  disconnected.  Hence  each  people  has  its  own  peculiar 
natural  principle  — its  geographical  and  anthropological 
character. 

§ 347. 

The  world-spirit,  in  its  onward  march,  hands  over  to  each 
people  the  task  of  working  out  its  own  peculiar  vocation. 
Thus  in  universal  history  each  nation  in  turn,  is  for  that 
epoch  (and  it  can  make  such  an  epoch  only  once),  dominant. 
Against  this  absolute  right  to  be  the  bearer  of  the  present 
stage  of  the  development  of  the  world-spirit,  the  spirits  of 
the  other  nations  are  absolutely  without  right,  and  they, 
as  well  as  those  whose  epochs  are  passed,  count  no  longer 
in  universal  history.  The  special  history  of  any  world- 
historical  nation  contains,  partly  the  development  of  its 
genius  from  its  infantile  state  to  its  bloom,  when  it  attains 
to  free  ethical  self-consciousness  and  holds  the  wheel  of  the 
world’s  destiny  ; partly,  it  also  contains  the  period  of  its 
downfall  and  destruction.  For  thus  the  rise  of  a higher 
principle  appears  as  only  the  abrogation  and  the  fulfilment 
of  its  own  earlier  form.  . . . 

§ 348. 

At  the  head  of  all  great  historical  events  we  find 
individuals  who  accomplish  the  essential  destiny  of  a 
people  or  an  epoch.  As  tools  of  the  world-spirit,  they  do 
the  deed  without  conscious  design  of  its  full  significance 


210 


ETHICALITY  (. SITTLICHKEIT ). 


and  consequences.  Their  contemporaries  and  even  pos- 
terity may  decline  to  bestow  due  honor  upon  them  for  the 
deed.  But  the  true  view  of  their  mission,  gives  them  their 
part  in  immortal  renown. 


§ 349. 

A people  is  not  directly  a State.  The  transition  of  a 
clan,  horde,  tribe  or  multitude  into  the  make-up  of  a state 
constitutes  the  formal  realization  of  the  Idea  as  such  in  it. 
A people  is  potentially  ethical  substance,  but  unless  it  is 
formed  into  State  it  lacks  the  determinate  being  which  fixed 
laws  can  give  it,  both  for  itself  and  others,  and,  hence,  can 
have  no  recognition  and  can  assert  no  sovereignty. 

§ 350. 

It  is  the  absolute  right  of  the  Idea  to  appear  in  laws 
and  objective  institutions,  springing  from  wedlock  and 
agriculture,  whether  the  form  of  this  realization  appears  as 
divine  legislation  and  grace,  or  as  violence  and  wrong. 
Such  right  is  the  right  of  heroes  to  found  states. 

§ 351. 

Hence  it  also  happens  that  civilized  nations  consider  and 
treat  such  nations  as  represent  a lower  stage,  as  barbarians, 
esteeming  their  rights  as  inferior  and  their  independence 
as  merely  nominal.  Their  wars  are  of  significance  in  the 
world-history,  only  as  representing  the  element  of  the 
struggle  for  recognition. 

§ 352. 

The  genii  of  peoples  as  concrete  Ideas , have  their  truth 
and  character  in  the  Absolute  Idea.  They  stand  around  the 
throne  of  the  world-spirit  as  the  executors  of  its  realization, 
and  as  witnesses  and  ornaments  of  its  glory.  As  world- 


THE  STATE. 


2 I I 


spirit  it  is  only  its  own  deed  of  coming  to  itself  — to 
conscious  knowledge  of  its  own  being  and  mission  of 
freedom.  There  are  four  marked  principles  of  the  forma- 
tion of  this  self-consciousness  in  the  course  of  its  freedom, 
i.  e.,  the  four  world-historical  empires. 

These  are : (i)  The  Oriental,  (2)  the  Greek,  (3)  the 
Roman  and  (4)  the  Germanic  Empires. 

§ 353. 

In  the  first  of  these  it  (the  world-spirit)  has  the  form 
of  substa?itial  spirit,  in  which  all  individuality  remains 
suppressed  and  without  the  right  of  existence. 

The  second  principle  is  the  ktiowledge  of  this  substantial 
spirit.  It  is  the  positive  content  and  fulfilment  and  inde- 
pendency as  the  vital  form  of  the  world-spirit,  which  is 
beautiful  ethical  individuality. 

The  third  is  the  self-involution  of  this  knowledge  and 
independence  to  abstract  universality.  It  thus  renders  all 
objectivity  spiritless  and  comes  into  infinite  opposition  to  it. 

The  principle  of  the  fourth  form  is  that  of  the  change 
of  this  opposition  of  Spirit,  so  as  to  receive  inwardly  its 
own  truth  and  concrete  nature,  and  to  be  reconciled  with 
objectivity,  and  thus  to  be  at  home  with  itself  in  the  sphere 
of  the  secular.  This  change  also  involves  its  creating  and 
knowing  its  truth  as  thought  and  as  the  real  definite  world. 
It  involves  this,  because  it  is  spirit  which  has  overcome  its 
opposition  to  secular  objectivity  and  returned,  ladened  with 
all  the  spoils  of  victory,  to  universal  Spirit. 

This  division  gives  the  skeleton  outlines,  which  Hegel’s 
Philosophy  of  History  clothes  with  all  the  vitality  of  the 
spirit  of  God,  as  the  spirit  of  humanity.  This  work  is 
already  so  well  known  in  translation 1 as  to  render  un- 

1 Lectures  on  the  Philosophy  of  History,  by  G.  W.  F.  Hegel,  translated 
by  J.  Sibree,  M.A.  Bohn’s  Philosophical  Library,  1861. 


2 12 


ETHIC ALITY  (. SITTLICHKEIT ). 


necessary  more  than  commendatory  reference  to  it.  We, 
however,  select  a few  paragraphs  as  the  fitting  close  of 
this  volume  on  Hegel’s  Ethics  : — 

“The  History  of  the  world  is  the  progress  of  man  in  the 
consciousness  of  freedom.  ...  It  is  the  discipline  of  the 
uncontrolled  natural  will,  bringing  it  into  obedience  to  a 
universal  principle  and  conferring  subjective  freedom.  . . . 
The  Orientals  knew  that  one  is  free,  who  was  only  a despot 
not  a free  man.  The  Greeks  and  Romans  knew  that  some 
are  free,  — not  man  as  such.  The  Germanic  nations,  under 
the  influence  of  Christianity,  were  the  first  to  attain  the 
consciousness  that  man,  as  man,  is  free  — that  it  is  the 
freedom  of  spirit  which  constitutes  his  essence.  . . . But 
to  introduce  this  principle  into  the  various  relations  of  the 
actual  world,  involves,  besides  its  simple  implantation,  a 
severe  and  lengthened  process  of  education.”1 

“The  spirit  of  God  lives  in  the  Church,  but  it  is  in  the 
world,  as  a yet  inharmonious  material,  that  spirit  is  to 
be  realized.  The  world,  or  secular  business,  cannot  be 
repudiated,  and  ultimately  the  discovery  is  made  that  spirit 
finds  the  goal  of  its  struggle  and  its  harmonization  in  that 
very  sphere  which  it  made  the  object  of  its  resistance — it 
finds  that  secular  pursuits  are  a spiritual  occupation.”  2 

“This  fourth  phase  of  World-History  answers  to  the 
old  age  of  man’s  life.  The  old  age  of  nature , however,  is 
weakness ; but  the  old  age  of  spirit  is  its  perfect  maturity 
and  strength,  in  which  it  returns  to  unity  with  itself,  but  in 
its  fully  developed  character  as  spirit.  This  fourth  phase 
begins  with  the  Reconciliation  presented  in  Christianity  — 
but  only  in  the  germ,  without  national  or  political  develop- 
ment.” 3 

After  portraying  the  terrible  but  wholesome  discipline  of 
the  middle  ages,  under  the  two  iron  rods  of  ecclesiastical 
power  and  serfdom,  he  says  : — 


1 pp.  19  and  1 10. 


p.  368. 


P- 


THE  STATE. 


2i  3 


“ Humanity  has  now  attained  the  consciousness  of  a real 
internal  harmonization  of  spirit  and  a good  conscience  in 
regard  to  actuality  — to  secular  life.  The  human  spirit  has 
come  to  stand  on  its  own  basis.  In  the  self-consciousness 
to  which  man  has  thus  advanced,  there  is  no  revolt  against 
the  Divine,  but  a manifestation  of  that  better  subjectivity 
which  recognizes  the  Divine  in  its  own  being ; which  is 
imbued  with  the  Good  and  the  True,  and  which  directs 
its  activities  to  the  general  and  liberal  objects  bearing  the 
stamp  of  rationality  and  beauty.”1 

In  speaking  of  the  Reformation,  he  says  : “ This  is  the 
essence  of  the  Reformation  : man,  in  his  very  nature,  is 
destined  to  be  free.”2 

In  showing  how  the  modern  spirit  has  taken  up  and 
made  its  own  “the  absolute  inwardness  of  soul,”  and  yet 
demands  the  surrendering  of  one’s  mere  private  subjectivity 
to  substantial  truth,  required  by  Christianity,  he  says  : — 
“In  the  proclamation  of  these  principles  is  unfurled  the 
new  and  final  standard  round  which  the  nations  rally  — 
the  banner  of  Free  Spirit , independent,  while  finding  its  life 
in  the  truth  and  enjoying  its  independence  only  in  the 
truth.  This  is  the  banner  which  we  bear  and  under  which 
we  serve.  Time  has  no  other  work  to  do  than  the  formal 
imbuing  of  the  world  with  this  principle,  in  bringing  the 
Reconciliation  implicit  in  Christianity  into  objective  and 
explicit  realization.  . . . This  is  the  sense  in  which  we 
must  understand  the  State  to  be  based  on  Religion.  States 
and  Laws  are  nothing  else  than  Religion  manifesting  itself 
in  the  actual  relations  of  the  secular  world.”  3 

“ Secular  life  is  the  positive  and  definite  embodiment  of 
the  Spiritual  Kingdom  — the  Kingdom  of  Will  manifesting 
itself  in  outward  existence.  . . . That  which  is  just  and 
moral  belongs  to  the  essential,  independent  and  intrinsically 
universal  will  ; and,  if  we  would  know  what  is  right,  we 

i p.  425. 


P-  434- 


P-  434- 


214 


E THICALITY  (. SITTLICHKEIT ). 


must  abstract  all  subjective  inclinations  and  desires,  i.  e.,  we 
must  know  what  the  Will  is  in  itself.  The  Will  is  free  only 
when  it  does  not  will  anything  alien  to  itself  (as  universal) 
but  wills  itself  alone- — wills  the  Will  (universal).”1 

Then,  after  making  most  trenchant  criticism  of  this 
principle  when  applied  in  the  abstract  way  which  led  to 
“the  Age  of  Reason,”  the  French  Revolution  and  the 
Aufklärung , ruthlessly  destroying  all  the  holy  web  of  human 
institutions,  he  says  : — 

“It  is  a false  principle,  that  the  fetters  which  bind 
justice  and  liberty  can  be  broken  without  the  emancipation 
of  the  Conscience  — that  there  can  be  a Revolution  with- 
out a Reformation.  . . . Mere  external  power  can  affect 
nothing  in  the  long  run  : Napoleon  could  no  more  coerce 
Spain  into  freedom  than  Phillip  II.  could  force  Holland 
into  slavery.”2 

“In  the  Protestant  world  there  is  no  sacred  or  religious 
conscience  in  a state  of  separation  from  or,  perhaps,  even 
of  hostility  to  secular  right.  This  is  the  point  attained  by 
the  modern  Consciousness.  . . . Objective  freedom  — the 
laws  of  real  freedom  — demand  the  subjugation  of  the 
arbitrary,  formal,  subjective  will.  Yet  while  the  objective 
is  the  rational  for  man,  there  is  the  further  demand  that 
insight  and  conviction  correspond  with  the  Reason  which 
the  objective  embodies.  Thus  we  have  the  other  essential 
element  — subjective  freedom  — also  realized.”3 

“ That  the  History  of  the  World,  with  all  the  changing 
scenes  which  its  annals  present,  is  this  process  of  the 
development  and  actualization  of  Spirit  — this  is  the  true 
Theodicy,  the  justification  of  God  in  History.  Only  this 
insight  can  reconcile  the  human  spirit  with  the  course  of 
Universal  History  — viz.,  that  what  has  happened  and  is 
happening  each  day  is  not  only  not  without  God,  but  that 
it  is  essentially  His  work.”4 


2 P-  472- 


1 p.  461. 


p.  476. 


P-  477- 


INDEX. 


Abstractness,  vice  of,  II,  27. 
Aufklärung,  ethics  of  the,  20. 

Chinese  morality,  13. 

Church  and  state,  47,  203. 

City  and  country,  188. 

Classes  of  civil  society,  1 70-1 74. 
Community,  the  civic,  159,  187. 
Conscience,  116-133. 

private,  117. 

■ the  true,  120. 

Contract,  33,  89. 

Corporation,  the  municipal,  187. 
Crime,  34,  94. 

Culpability,  108. 

Dialectical  method,  28. 

Divorce,  1 56. 

Duty  for  duty’s  sake,  14. 

Education  of  the  race,  208. 

of  children,  208. 

End,  the,  sanctifies  the  means,  128. 
Ethicality,  n,  39,  67,  135. 

Ethics,  absolute,  53,  204. 

Christian,  56. 

Evil,  moral,  37,  122. 

origin  of,  123. 

Family,  the,  41,  148. 

Fichte,  7,  17. 

Finality  in  morals  impossible,  51. 
Fraud,  94. 

Freedom,  steps  in  progress  of,  52. 


Green,  T.  H.,  51. 

Hegel,  a Moses,  15. 

biographical  sketch  of,  1-8. 

method  of,  27. 

relation  of  to  previous  ethical 

thought,  8,  22. 

History,  universal,  207. 

epochs  in,  209. 

Hypocrisy,  127. 

Intention,  the  right  of,  no. 

Irony,  131. 

Jacobi,  14,  129. 

Jury,  trial  by,  185. 

Justice,  administration  of,  174. 
courts  of,  1 8 r . 

Kant,  criticism  of,  9,  16,  36. 

Key  words,  57. 

Know  thyself  \YvC161.  creavriv],  10. 

Labor,  nature  of,  166. 

division  of,  167. 

Logic  (Hegel’s)  as  metaphysics,  23. 
Love,  148. 

Man,  how  good  and  evil  by  nature, 
123- 

Marriage,  42,  90,  150. 

ethical  duty  of,  150. 

solemnization  of,  153. 

Monarchy,  206. 


INDEX. 


216 

Montesquieu,  194. 

Morality,  11,  36,  67,  102. 

laws  of,  1 42. 

Morris,  Prof.  Geo.  S.,  30. 

quoted,  197,  21 1. 

Mulford,  Rev.  Dr.  E.  44. 

Nature,  philosophy  of,  24. 

Pascal,  126. 

Patriotism,  200. 

Pedagogue,  the  right  of  the,  144. 
Person,  the  abstract,  32,  72. 
Personality,  73. 

Philosophy,  the  task  of,  63. 

Police,  187, 

Possessions,  82,  84. 

Probabilism,  127. 

Property,  33,  76,  154. 

equality  of,  not  rational,  80. 

Punishment,  34,  95. 

false  theories  of,  98. 

Purpose  and  culpability,  108. 

Rationalism,  eighteenth  century, 
20. 

Reformation,  the,  213. 

Religion  and  the  state,  47,  203. 
Revenge,  99. 

Revolution,  the  French,  214. 
Right,  abstract,  32,  71,  75. 

of  necessity,  114. 

Rousseau,  190. 

Royce,  Prof.  Josiah,  VIII.,  2. 


Schelling,  7,  19. 

Secular  affairs,  sacredness  of,  212, 
213- 

Slavery,  33,  88. 

State,  the,  44. 

an  organism,  198,  202. 

ancient  and  modern,  196. 

and  individual's,  198. 

and  institutions,  198. 

and  religion,  203. 

and  the  church,  47. 

distinguished  from  civil  so- 
ciety, 189. 

rights  and  duties  in,  195. 

Spirit,  the  philosophy  of,  26. 

the  testimony  of  the,  137. 

Station,  my,  and  its  duties,  14. 
Stirling,  Dr.  J.  H.,  V.,  VIII.,  3. 
Suicide,  wrong,  87. 

Superstition,  87. 

Theodicy,  Hegel’s,  214. 

Virtue,  talk  about,  empty,  140. 

Wants  and  their  satisfaction,  163. 
Wealth,  168. 

impossibility  of  equality  of, 

169. 

Wedlock  149. 

Will,  the,  as  thought,  64. 

• as  infinite  and  free,  65. 

Wrong,  91. 


ADVERTISEMENTS. 


PHILOSOPHY. 


Empirical  Psychology ; 

or,  The  Human  Mind  as  Given  in  Consciousness. 

By  Laurens  P.  Hickok,  D.D.,  LL.D.  Revised  with  the  co-operation  of 
Julius  H.  Seelye,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  Ex-Prest.  of  Amherst  College.  12mo. 
300  pages.  Mailing  Price,  $1.25;  Introduction,  $1.12. 


rPHE  publishers  believe  that  this  book  will  be  found  to  be  re- 
markably comprehensive,  and  at  the  same  time  compact  and 
clear.  It  gives  a complete  outline  of  the  science,  concisely  pre- 
sented, and  in  precise  and  plain  terms. 

It  has  proved  of  special  value  to  teachers,  as  is  evidenced  by  its 
recent  adoption  for  several  Reading  Circles. 


John  Bascom,  formerly  Pres.  Uni- 
versity of  Wisconsin,  Madison : It  is 
an  excellent  hook.  It  has  done  much 
good  service,  and,  as  revised  by 
President.  Seelye,  is  prepared  to  do 
much  more. 

I.  W.  Andrews,  formerly  Prof,  of 
Intellectual  Philosophy,  Marietta 


College,  0. : This  new  edition  may 
be  confidently  recommended  as  pre- 
senting a deliueation  of  the  mental 
faculties  so  clear  and  accurate  that 
the  careful  student  will  hardly  fail 
to  recognize  its  truth  in  his  own  ex- 
perience. 


Hickok’ s Mora!  Science. 

By  Laurens  P.  Hickok,  D.D.,  LL.D.  Revised  with  the  co-operation  of 
Julius  H.  Seelye,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  Ex-Prest.  of  Amherst  College.  12mo. 
Cloth.  288  pages.  Mailing  Price,  $1.25;  Introduction,  $1.12. 


A S revised  by  Dr.  Seelye,  it  is  believed  that  this  work  will  be 
found  unsurpassed  in  systematic  rigor  and  scientific  precision, 
and  at  the  same  time  remarkably  clear  and  simple  in  style. 


G.  P.  Fisher,  Prof,  of  Church  His- 
tory, Yale  College : The  style  is  so 
perspicuous,  and  at  the  same  time  so 
concise,  that  the  work  is  eminently 
135 


adapted  to  serve  as  a text-hook  in 
colleges  and  higher  schools.  In  mat- 
ter and  manner  it  is  a capital  book, 
and  I wish  it  God  speed. 


13(3 


PHILOSOPHY. 


Lotze’s  Philosophical  Outlines. 

Dictated  Portions  of  the  Latest  Lectures  (at  Göttingen  and  Berlin)  of 
Hermann  Lotze.  Translated  and  edited  by  George  T.  Ladd,  Pro- 
fessor of  Philosophy  in  Yale  University.  12mo.  Cloth.  About  180 
pages  in  each  volume.  Mailing  price  per  volume,  $1.00  ; for  introduc- 
tion, 80  cents. 

T“  German  from  which  the  translations  are  made  consists  of 
the  dictated  portions  of  his  latest  lectures  (at  Gottingen,  and 
for  a few  months  at  Berlin)  as  formulated  by  Lotze  himself, 
recorded  in  the  notes  of  his  hearers,  and  subjected  to  the  most 
competent  and  thorough  revision  of  Professor  Heimisch  of  Got- 
tingen. The  Outlines  give,  therefore,  a mature  and  trustworthy 
statement,  in  language  selected  by  this  teacher  of  philosophy  him- 
self, of  what  may  be  considered  as  his  final  opinions  upon  a wide 
range  of  subjects.  They  have  met  with  no  little  favor  in  Germany. 

These  translations  have  been  undertaken  with  the  kind  permis- 
sion of  the  German  publisher,  Herr  S.  Hirzel,  of  Leipsic. 

Outlines  of  Metaphysic. 

This  contains  the  scientific  treatment  of  those  assumptions  which  enter 
into  all  our  cognition  of  Reality.  It  consists  of  three  parts,  — Ontology, 
Cosmology,  Phenomenology.  The  first  part  contains  chapters  on  the  Con- 
ception of  Being,  the  Content  of  the  Existent,  Reality,  Change,  and  Causa- 
tion ; the  second  treats  of  Space,  Time,  Motion,  Matter,  and  the  Coherency 
of  Natural  Events;  the  third,  of  the  Subjectivity  and  Objectivity  of  Cog- 
nition. The  Metaphysic  of  Lotze  gives  the  key  to  his  entire  philosophical 
system. 

Outlines  of  the  Philosophy  of  Religion. 

Lotze  here  seeks  “ to  ascertain  how  much  of  the  Content  of  Religion  may 
be  discovered,  proved,  or  at  least  confirmed,  agreeably  to  reason.”  He 
discusses  the  Proof  for  the  Existence  of  God,  the  Attributes  and  Personality 
of  the  Absolute,  the  Conceptions  of  the  Creation,  the  Preservation,  and  the 
Government,  of  the  World,  and  of  the  World-time.  The  book  closes  with 
brief  discussions  of  Religion  and  Morality,  and  Dogmas  and  Confessions. 
Outlines  of  Practical  Philosophy. 

This  contains  a discussion  of  Ethical  Principles,  Moral  Ideals,  and  the 
Freedom  of  the  Will,  and  then  an  application  of  the  theory  to  the  Indi- 
vidual, to  Marriage,  to  Society,  and  to  the  State.  Many  interesting 
remarks  on  Divorce,  Socialism,  Representative  Government,  etc.,  abound 
throughout  the  volume.  Its  style  is  more  popular  than  that  of  the  other 
works  of  Lotze,  and  it  will  doubtless  be  widely  read. 

Outlines  of  Psychology. 

The  Outlines  of  Psychology  treats  of  Simple  Sensations,  the  Course  of 
Representative  Ideas,  of  Attention  and  Inference,  of  Intuitions,  of  Objects 
as  in  Space,  of  the  Apprehension  of  the  External  IVorld  by  the  Senses,  of 
Errors  of  the  Senses,  of  Feelings,  and  of  Bodily  Motions.  Its  second  part 
is  “theoretical,”  and  discusses  the  nature,  position,  and  changeable  states 
of  the  Soul,  its  relations  to  time,  and  the  reciprocal  action  of  Soul  and  Body. 
It  closes  with  a chapter  on  the  “Kingdom  of  Souls.”  Lotze  is  peculiarly 
rich  and  suggestive  in  the  discussion  of  Psychology. 


PHILOSOPHY. 


137 


Outlines  of  /Esthetics. 

The  Outlines  of  Esthetics  treats  of  the  theory  of  the  Beautifm  and  of 
Phantasy,  and  of  the  Realization  and  Different  Species  of  the  Beautiful. 
Then  follow  brief  chapters  on  Music,  Architecture,  Plastic  Art,  Painting, 
and  Poetry.  This,  like  the  other  volumes,  has  a full  index. 


Outlines  of  Logic. 

This  discusses  both  pure  and  applied  Logic.  The  Logic  is  followed  by  a 
brief  treatise  on  the  Encyclopaedia  of  Philosophy,  in  which  are  set  forth 
the  definition  and  method  of  Theoretical  Philosophy,  of  Practical  Phi- 
losophy, and  of  the  Philosophy  of  Religion.  This  volume  is  about  one-fifth 
larger  than  the  others,  and  makes  an  admirable  brief  text-book  in  Logic. 


Mind,  London,  Eng. : No  words 
are  needed  to  commend  such  an  en- 
terprise, now  that  Lotze’s  importance 


as  a thinker  is  so  well  understood. 
The  translation  is  careful  and  pains- 
taking. 


The  Philosophical  Reuiew , 

A Bi-monthly  Journal  of  General  Philosophy, 

Edited  by  J.  G.  Schurmax,  Dean  of  the  Sage  School  of  Philosophy  and 
President  of  Cornell  University.  Subscription  price,  $3.00.  Single 
copy,  75  cents.  Foreign  Agents:  Great  Britain,  Edward  Arnold,  Lon- 
don; Germany,  Mayer  & Müller,  Berlin;  France,  E.  Leroux,  Paris; 
Italy,  E.  Loescher,  Rome.  Volume  II.  began  with  January,  1893. 

rpHE  PHILOSOPHICAL  REVIEW  is  intended  as  an  organ  for 
the  publication  of  the  results  of  investigation  in  every  branch 
of  Philosophy.  It  is  made  up  of  original  articles,  reviews  of  books, 
and  classified  summaries  of  periodical  literature. 

The  Review  will  not  enter  into  competition  with  those  special- 
ized or  technical  journals  which  are  already  engaged  in  the  minute 
cultivation  of  particular  branches  of  Philosophy.  Its  domain  is 
the  still  unoccupied  field  of  General  Philosophy : that  whole  which 
includes,  along  with  the  older  subjects  of  Logic,  Metaphysics,  and 
Ethics,  the  newer  subjects  of  Psychology,  ^Esthetics,  Pedagogy, 
and  Epistemology,  both  in  their  systematic  form  and  in  their  his- 
torical development.  Its  field  is  as  broad  as  mind.  And  it  will 
be  an  open  forum  alike  for  those  who  increase  the  stock  of  positive 
data  and  for  those  who  strive  to  see  new  facts  in  their  bearings 
and  relations,  and  to  trace  them  up  to  their  ultimate  speculative 
implications. 

With  the  generality  of  its  scope,  the  Review  aims  to  combine 
an  impartiality  and  catholicity  of  tone  and  spirit.  It  will  not  be 
the  organ  of  any  institution,  or  of  any  sect,  or  of  any  interest.  It 
will  maintain  the  same  objectivity  of  attitude  as  a journal  of  Math- 
ematics or  Philology.  All  articles  will  be  signed,  and  the  writers 
alone  will  be  responsible  for  their  contents. 


138 


PHILOSOPHY. 


A Brief  History  of  Greek  Philosophy. 

By  B.  C.  Burt,  M.A.,  formerly  Docent  of  Philosophy,  Clark  University. 

12mo.  Cloth,  xiv  + 296  pages.  Mailing  price,  $ 1.25 ; for  introd.,  §1.12. 

FJIHIS  work  attempts  to  give  a concise  but  comprehensive  account 
of  Greek  Philosophy  on  its  native  soil  and  in  Rome.  It  is 
critical  and  interpretative,  as  well  as  purely  historical,  its  para- 
graphs of  criticism  and  interpretation,  however,  being,  as  a rule, 
distinct  from  those  devoted  to  biography  and  exposition.  The 
wants  of  the  reader  or  student  who  desires  to  comprehend,  rather 
than  merely  to  inform  himself,  have  particularly  been  in  the  mind 
of  the  author,  whose  aim  has  been  to  let  the  subject  unfold  itself 
as  far  as  possible.  The  volume  contains  a full  topical  table  of  con- 
tents, a brief  bibliography  of  the  subject  it  treats,  and  numerous 
foot-notes  embracing  references  to  original  authorities  and  assist- 
ing the  student  towards  a real  contact  with  the  Greek  thinkers 
themselves. 


G.  Stanley  Hall,  Pres.  Clark  Uni- 
versity : His  book  is  the  best  of  its 
kind  upon  the  subject. 

Geo.  S.  Morris,  late  Prof,  of  Phil- 
osophy in  Michigan  University  : 
What  Professor  Burt  has  done  is  to 
collect  in  compendious  form  what 
is  most  characteristic  and  of  most 
essential  significance  in  these  results 
of  philosophical  investigation,  and 


then  to  re-interpret  or  re-exhibit 
them  in  the  light  of  the  more  mature 
fruits  of  modern  inquiry.  This  is 
the  best  and  most  serviceable  kind 
of  originality. 

W.  T.  Harris,  Editor  Jour. of  Spec- 
ulative Philosophy : I have  found 
this  work  in  philosophy  to  possess 
high  merit.  His  grasp  of  the  history 
of  the  subject  is  rare  and  trustworthy. 


The  Modalist;  or.  The  Laws  of  Rational  Conviction. 


A Text-Book  in  Formal  or  General  Logic.  By  Edward  John  Hamil- 
ton, D.D.,  formerly  Albert  Barnes  Professor  of  Intellectual  Philosophy, 
Hamilton  College,  N.Y.  8vo.  Cloth.  337  pages.  Price,  by  mail, 
$1.40;  for  introduction,  $1.25. 

TjJHIS  book  restores  modal  propositions  and  modal  syllogisms  to 
the  place  of  importance  which  they  occupied  in  the  Logic  of 
Aristotle.  The  author  thinks  that  universal  and  particular  cate- 
gorical propositions  cannot  be  understood,  as  principles  of  reason- 
ing, and  as  employed  in  “ mediate  inference,”  unless  the  one  be 
regarded  as  expressing  a necessary  and  the  other  a contingent 
sequence.  Therefore,  also,  he  explains  the  pure  syllogism  by  the 


PHILOSOPHY. 


139 


modal.  Moreover,  there  are  modes  of  reasoning  which  can  be 
formulated  only  in  modal  syllogisms. 


Henry  Coppee,  Prof,  of  English 
Literature  in  Lehigh  University : The 
Modalist  is  evidently  the  work  of  a 
writer  who  has  studied  logic  with 
great  care  and  pleasure,  and  will 
prove  a valuable  text-book  with  the 
Professor’s  aid  to  the  student  in 
studying  it. 

The  Christian  Union,  New  York : 
In  it  the  author  aims  to  give  a clear 
definition  of  the  science,  to  determine 
exactly  its  scope  and  sphere,  to  base 


it  properly  upon  perceptionalism, 
and  to  exploit  thoroughly  the  theory 
of  inference  and  illative  judgment. 
His  discussion  of  the  new  analytic 
and  of  contingency  in  the  twenty- 
first  and  two  following  chapters  is 
extremely  interesting,  and  his  criti- 
cism of  Euler’s  diagrams  and  of 
Hamilton’s  notation  is  acute.  While 
somewhat  minute,  it  is,  on  the  whole, 
the  best  text-book  in  logic  we  have 
seen  iu  the  English  language. 


Mechanism  and  Personality. 


By  Francis  A.  Shoup,  D.D.,  Professor  of  Analytical  Physics,  Univer- 
sity of  the  South.  12mo.  Cloth,  xvi  + 341  pages.  Price  by  mail,  $1.30  ; 
for  introduction,  $1.20. 


rpHIS  book  is  an  outline  of  Philosophy  in  the  light  of  the  latest 
scientific  research.  It  deals  candidly  and  simply  with  the 
“burning  questions”  of  the  day,  the  object  being  to  help  the 
general  reader  and  students  of  Philosophy  find  their  way  to  some- 
thing like  definite  standing-ground  among  the  uncertainties  of 
science  and  metaphysics.  It  begins  with  physiological  psychology, 
treats  of  the  development  of  the  several  modes  of  personality, 
passes  on  into  metaphysic,  and  ends  in  ethics,  following,  in  a 
general  way,  the  thought  of  Lotze.  It  is  strictly  in  line  with  the 
remark  of  Professor  Huxley,  that  “the  reconciliation  of  physics 
and  metaphysics  lies  in  the  acknowledgment  of  faults  upon  both 
sides;  in  the  confession  by  physics  that  all  the  phenomena  of 
nature  are,  in  their  ultimate  analysis,  known  to  us  only  as  facts  of 
consciousness ; in  the  admission  by  metaphysics  that  the  facts  of 
consciousness  are,  practically,  interpretable  only  by  the  methods 
and  the  formulae  of  physics.” 


George  Trumbull  ladd,  Prof,  of  I 
Philosophy , Yale  University  : I find  | 
Dr.  Slioup’s  “ Mechanism  and  Per- 
sonality ” an  interesting  and  stimu- 
lating little  book.  Written,  as  it  is, 
by  one  whose  points  of  view  are 
somewhat  outside  of  those  taken  by 
professional  students  of  philosophy, 
it  is  the  fresher  and  more  suggestive 


on  that  account.  At  the  same  time, 
the  author  has  kept  himself  from 
straying  too  far  away  from  the  con- 
clusions legitimate  to  disciplined 
students  of  the  subject,  by  a some- 
what close  adherence  to  Lotze,  and 
by  a considerable  breadth  of  philo- 
sophical reading. 


140 


PHILOSOPHY. 


ETHICAL  SERIES. 


UNDER  THE  EDITORIAL  SUPERVISION  OF 

Professor  E.  IIershey  Sneath  of  Yale  University. 

rpHE  primary  object  of  the  series  is  to  facilitate  the  study  of  the 
History  of  Ethics  in  colleges.  This  History  will  be  in  the 
form  of  a series  of  small  volumes,  each  devoted  to  the  presentation 
of  a representative  system  of  Modern  Ethics  in  selections  from  the 
original  works.  The  selections  will  be  accompanied  by  notes,  and 
prefaced  by  a brief  biographical  sketch  of  the  author,  a statement 
of  the  relation  of  his  system  to  preceding  and  subsequent  ethical 
thought  a brief  exposition  of  the  system,  and  a bibliography. 

All  teachers  will  doubtless  concede  the  advisability  of  placing 
original  works  in  the  hands  of  students  instead  of  mere  expo- 
sitions — such  as  are  contained  in  the  various  Histories  of  Ethics. 
In  a number  of  instances,  however,  the  original  editions  are 
exhausted,  and  only  a few  copies  are  available  ; and,  in  other 
instances,  the  books  are  too  elaborate  and  expensive,  if  a number 
of  systems  are  to  be  studied.  The  series  will  make  provision  for 
these  difficulties  by  presenting  each  system  in  carefully  edited 
extracts,  and  in  a form  which  will  entail  comparatively  little 
expense  upon  the  student. 

See  also  the  Announcements. 

The  Ethics  of  Hume. 

By  Dr.  J.  H.  Hyslop,  of  Columbia  College.  12mo.  Cloth.  275  pages. 

Mailing  price,  $1.10;  for  introduction,  $1.00. 

rpiIE  present  volume  contains  the  whole  of  the  third  book  of  the 
Treatise  of  Human  Nature,  and  such  portions  of  the  second 
book  as  throw  light  upon  or  are  connected  with  Hume’s  moral 
theory. 

The  analysis  and  criticism  of  his  system  follows  lines  somewhat 
different  from  that  of  Green,  and  are  designed  to  present  Hume 
in  another  light.  In  all  respects  it  is  hoped  that  the  volume  may 
prove  helpful  to  those  who  wish  to  study  the  ethical  system  of 
Kant’s  predecessor. 


POLITICAL  SCIENCE. 


143 


Political  Science  and  Comparative  Constitutional 

Law. 

By  John  W.  Burgess,  LL.D.,  Professor  of  Constitutional  and  Inter- 
national History  and  Law,  and  Dean  of  the  School  of  Political  Science 
in  Columbia  College.  Two  volumes.  8vo.  Cloth.  781  pages.  Retail 
price,  $5.00.  Special  terms  to  teachers  and  for  introduction. 


rjJHE  first  Part  of  the  work  is  devoted  to  the  general  principles  of 
political  science.  It  is  divided  into  three  Books.  The  first 
book  treats  of  the  nation  as  an  ethnological  concept ; the  second 
treats  of  the  state,  its  idea,  its  origin,  its  forms,  and  its  ends  ; and 
the  third  shows  the  historical  development  of  the  four  typical 
constitutions  of  the  modern  age,  those  of  England,  Germany, 
France,  and  the  United  States. 

The  second  Part  is  devoted  to  a comparison  of  the  provisions  of 
these  typical  constitutions  and  a generalization  from  these  provis- 
ions of  some  fundamental  principles  of  constitutional  law.  The 
three  Books  of  this  Part  treat,  the  first  of  sovereignty  within  the 
constitution,  the  second  of  civil  liberty,  and  the  third,  which  con- 
stitutes the  second  volume , of  government,  legislative,  executive, 
and  judicial. 


The  London  Times  : A very 

learned,  elaborate,  and  suggestive 
work.  . . . His  work  ...  is  full  of 
keen  analysis  and  suggestive  com- 


ment, and  is  a noteworthy  contribu- 
tion to  the  comparative  study  of 
political  science  and  jurisprudence. 


Currency,  Finance,  and  Banking. 

Laws  of  the  United  States  relating  to  Currency,  Finance,  and  Banking; 
with  Vetoed  Bills  and  other  documents.  Compiled  by  Charles  F. 
Dunbar,  Professor  of  Political  Economy  in  Harvard  University.  8vo. 
Cloth.  309  pages.  Mailing  price,  $2.50 ; special  terms  for  use  in  classes. 


rjJHis  book  presents  in  chronological  order  the  exact  text  of  all 
important  acts  of  Congress  relating  to  currency,  finance,  coin- 
age, and  banking  from  1789  to  1891,  with  carefully  edited  abstracts 
of  acts  or  sections  of  minor  importance. 


The  Nation,  New  York : A work 
of  obvious  utility  and  convenience. 
. . . Professor  Dunbar’s  task  has  been 
most  scrupulously  executed,  and  a 


hare  statement  of  the  nature  of  it 
will  stand  in  lieu  of  praise.  The 
volume  is  beautifully  printed. 


BOOKS  IN  HIGHER  ENGLISH. 


Introd.  Price. 

Alexander:  Introduction  to  Browning $1.00 

Athenaeum  Press  Series  : 

Cook:  Sidney’s  Defense  of  Poesy 80 

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Baker : Plot-Book  of  Some  Elizabethan  Plays 00 

Cook  : A First  Book  in  Old  English 00 

Shelley’s  Defense  of  Poetry 50 

The  Art  of  Poetry 1.12 

Hunt’s  What  is  Poetry? 50 

* Newman’s  Aristotle’s  Poetics 30. 

Addison’s  Criticisms  on  Paradise  Lost 1.00 

Bacon’s  Advancement  of  Learning 00 

Corson:  Primer  of  English  Verse 1.00 

Emery : Notes  on  English  Literature 1.00 

English  Literature  Pamphlets:  Ancient  Mariner,  .05;  First 
Bunker  Hill  Address,  .10;  Essay  on  Lord  Clive, 

.15;  Second  Essay  on  the  Earl  of  Chatham,  .15; 

Burke,  I.  and  II. ; Webster,  I.  and  II. ; Bacon ; 
Wordsworth,  I.  and  II.;  Coleridge  and  Burns; 

Addison  and  Goldsmith Each  .15 

Fulton  & Trueblood  : Practical  Elocution Retail  1.50 

Choice  Readings,  $1.50;  Chart  of  Vocal  Expression  . 2.00 

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Gayley : Classic  Myths  in  English  Literature 1.50 

Genung : Outlines  of  Rhetoric 1.00 

Elements  of  Rhetoric,  $1.25 ; Rhetorical  Analysis  . 1.12 

Gummere:  Handbook  of  Poetics 1.00 

Hudson  : Harvard  Edition  of  Shakespeare’s  Complete  Works : — ■ 

20  Vol.  Ed.  Cloth,  retail,  $25.00;  Half-calf,  retail  . 55.00 
10  Vol.  Ed.  Cloth,  retail,  $20.00;  Half-calf,  retail  . 40.00 
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Minto : Manual  of  English  Prose  Literature 1.50 

Characteristics  of  English  Poets 1.50 

Newcomer  : Practical  Course  in  English  Composition  80 

Phelps  : English  Romantic  Movement 00 

Sherman:  Analytics  of  Literature 1.25 

Smith  : Synopsis  of  English  and  American  Literature  ...  .80 

Sprague  : Milton’s  Paradise  Lost  and  Lycidas 45 

Thayer:  The  Best  Elizabethan, Plays 1.25 

Thom:  Shakespeare  and  Chaucer  Examinations 1.00 

White  : Philosophy  of  American  Literature 30 

Whitney  : Essentials  of  English  Grammar 75 

Whitney  & Lockwood  : English  Grammar 70 

Winchester  : Five  Short  Courses  of  Reading  in  English  Literature,  .40 

AND  OTHER  VALUABLE  WORKS. 


GINN  & COMPANY,  Publishers, 

Boston,  New  York,  and  Chicago. 


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Date  Due 

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Wv”v'-  

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AUG  1 2 '49 

MAR  1 y - 

L.  B.  Cat.  No.  1137 

Duke  University  Libraries 


DO 1 334221 G 


